Totally no offense, it‘s really just a question, but I just don‘t understand why so much people who are also so privacy conscious and privacy promoting still post publicly a picture of themselves and often even with their whole name (@kissu, Jonah Aragon, Nathan Bartram and Kevin Pham just to name very few).
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Privacy is not the same as anonymity or pseudonymity, and posting your opinions under your real name is not posting your personal details.
There could be drawbacks to doing so of course, but I imagine these people weighed the decision to do so in a threat model and concluded it was something they are ok with doing.
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I’ve said this a few times before but privacy is all about having control over what data goes where, not preventing all data from going anywhere. The data they put out is stuff they intentionally want to make public. I use a pseudonym because I’m not comfortable putting my real name out there but that’s my choice.
Privacy issues happen when your data is made available to people you never wanted to have it, like ordering DoorDash and your name and address ends up on a data broker site for example.
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Nate is not using his real name here, FYI.
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I cannot speak on behalf of others, but I can definitely explain my circumstances. I do not have a public picture of myself, at least not an authorized one from me, because I am still deciding on a hairstyle I can connect and identify with. I chose to distribute my full name in order to participate in VanLUG as a board member and to become a Qubes OS “paid” support provider, among other public functions:
I utilize my experience to maintain a compartmentalized and finely scoped public identity while broadly promoting the Linux ecosystem as a whole.
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Privacy is about keeping control over what information you want to share about yourself, or not. Everyone has different needs and threat models regarding what they feel comfortable sharing.
Maybe someone shares their face and name, but never shares their home address. Maybe another person is okay with sharing their location, but will never share their face online.
This all come to personal choices. The important part is that people have all the information they need to make informed decisions, and have options to be able to only share what they wish to share.
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To build on what others have said, I highly recommend reading PG’s knowledge base articles for Threat Modeling and Common Threats.
You are confusing privacy & anonymity. Understanding the difference is a fundamental prerequisite if you are working to build effective mitigations & strategies for YOUR threat model. Luckily, PG has already documented everything you need to know 
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Also in other words, privacy is about consent.
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Yes! 
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Many years ago I saw a phrase describing it like this - privacy is knowing who they are, but not what they do. Anonymity is not knowing who they are but what they do. If they are private and anonymous you won’t know what they do or who they are.
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Privacy Guides defines „Privacy“ as „The assurance that your data is only seen by the parties you intend to view it“.
I guess everyone has to choose for themselves what parties are intended to see ones data, but I was just heavily under the assumption that no one really intends everyone to see your face online (which was the key flaw for this question) because it can be so drastically abused, especially when it comes to promoting privacy which is something most people don‘t care about.
My concerns came specifically from this vid. I am aware that the situation isn‘t the same, but still it shows that your face online can be so drastically abused that I thought especially for privacy advocates (which tend to act a little bit or sometimes even much more than a little bit over their threat model) it isn‘t worth the risk.
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Sure, that is understandable, but an individual’s mission may benefit from public exposure despite the various risks involved with following through with it. For example, the people involved with the Tor Project exercise privacy of their public identity to various degrees:
In addition, what can be drastically abused in theory does not necessarily equate to actively being drastically abused in practice.
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Privacy is about consent, and hence about choosing what you want to share.
It’s also easier to connect when you are more open with people. It’s very hard to connect with anyone if you don’t share some details about yourself. Statistically, YouTubers who show their face get more engagement than those who only share their voice. Showing your face makes you more relatable.
I strongly recommend you read Carissa Véliz’ The Ethics of Privacy and Surveillance.
In it, she talks about these issues.
As someone who doesn’t share much personal stuff about themselves online, I can tell you right now it’s very hard emotionally. It’s extremely isolating. If I am in New Zealand, and a problem I am trying to solve is specific to that country, I won’t make a post online specifying it because I don’t want other users or even the platform to associate me with New Zealand. It makes it so much harder to solve a problem.
I don’t think any of the people you mentioned are doing anything wrong from a privacy standpoint.
NOT USING PRIVATE PLATFORMS IS A BIGGER PROBLEM
I take more issue with prominent privacy companies, organizations, and public figures not using private platforms. To be clear, I don’t have a problem with Proton being active on Twitter. I think it’s important for them to be there. But I have a problem with Proton barely being active on BlueSky and completely inactive on Mastodon.
I should be able to ask Proton for support on Mastodon. But if I try, I will never get a response. Whereas on Twitter you’ll get a response within the day.
There are a good deal of privacy voices who recommend Proton Mail over Gmail. That’s great. Those same voices are aware of Mastodon, and yet either they don’t have a presence there, or they do, but don’t use their accounts.
I have so much respect for the privacy voices who are equally active on private and non-private platforms, like the EFF and Cory Doctorow. But so many of them fall short in this area.
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My personal reason for not using anything Fediverse-related is mostly due to my aversion to social media platforms. I prefer to avoid engaging in heated and unproductive arguments with people on the Internet, instead using my limited resources for achieving persistent results elsewhere. For clarification purposes, I do not consider Discourse to be a social media platform, even though there appears to be an ActivityPub plugin enabled in the General > News category.
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