Why privacy is more important now than ever.. SirSalty Follow Jan 6 · 5 min read

We live in a digital age of information. Bombarded daily with gossip and news many have taken to broadcastqQing their own life without considering the potential ramifications.

With the advent of social media came the social justice warrior, and the flash mob. Caught up in an unfortunate online scandal? Expect real life backlash. Exercise a politically incorrect stance on social media? Expect someone on the street to call you up on it.

The internet gives people a false sense of security, a detachment from the dangers of the real world. This leads to people saying things they otherwise wouldn’t, and often very loudly.

But does this mean those things shouldn’t have been said? Absolutely not.

The problem lies in saying those things when you have your name, your location, and a picture of your face on social media for the whole world to see.

Suddenly those things you said from the safety of your home can get tied to you as a real person in the real world, who could really get hurt.

What about companies like Google & Facebook tracking everything you do online?

“Sure, but they safeguard that information and use it to better their products and services”.

That’s fine, but they also sell that information to third parties.

“But that’s just to sell us more relevant stuff”

Yeah okay, but do you really want those companies knowing your porn browsing habits? What about every single thing you’ve ever typed into Google?

What about law enforcement agencies?

Do you want them to know you searched how to grow cannabis? What about that time you searched up how to use the darknet, or that time you were simply curious how bombs were made?

Walk with me a moment.

Let’s flash forward 10 years into the future. You’ve been accused of a crime you didn’t commit.

You’re sitting there as your lawyer makes a strong case for your innocence. After he finishes the prosecution points the jury toward one of your social media posts.

“As you can see in the days preceding the incident the defendant wrote an angry post on social media saying he wanted to kill someone”

Yeah, so what? Your friend was really testing your patience. Besides, it’s the internet. Nothing here is taken seriously right?

“Now I would like to turn your attention to the defendant’s browsing habits. Not 3 months prior to the incident the defendant searched on Google, and I quote, ‘Does Hydrofluoric acid really dissolve bodies?’ ”

The jury gasp. It’s shocking. Now they just know it was you and you can see it in their eyes.

“B-But I had just started watching breaking ba-”

The judge cuts you off and motions for the prosecutor to continue.

“Finally, I would like to show you the defendant’s location history. Right around the time the victim went missing the defendant was within 20 meters of the house for over 15 minutes”

The jury quickly turn from shocked to enraged. The judge demands order but even he looks at you with contempt.

Really you were just in the field behind the house letting your dog run while you played candy crush. Do the jury care that the field in question backs onto both your’s and the victim’s house? Not now. The fact you are neighbors with the victim only serves to make you look more guilty.

Now of course the scenario above is extreme, so let’s go with something more plausible that could apply to anyone.

Have a think about everything you’ve ever said to your closest friend via chat. Would you want any of that read out in a courtroom? Of course you wouldn’t.

There’s no good reason to believe that governments won’t retroactively prosecute people based on crimes they admitted to via private chat.

What if you’ve only committed small crimes but things you can get fined for? What if you’ve committed a lot of these small crimes over the years and you get fined for them all at once?

What if you were joking about committing crime but no-one believes you because the messages are taken out of context?

I am just scratching the surface here.

So, in such a digital age, how is one to safeguard oneself from such an Orwellian nightmare?

Privacy

Anonymity

Digital hygiene

Discretion

You don’t have to have your name, face, and physical location plastered over the internet, believe it or not.

Some of us handle internet life just fine as cartoon dogs or masked figures.

Some of us don’t care if people don’t know our real names or exactly where we’re from. On the internet this data isn’t pertinent to discussion, and often people regret having it so openly available.

On the internet our real life identities become our shackles; stopping us from saying what we really think. Our barefaced words become ammunition for haters, or worse; a prosecuting attorney.

With government and corporations spying on us more than ever, why not take a peaceful stand and stop making it so easy for them?

Why don’t you use DuckDuckGo to search the internet instead of Google? Why don’t you use private encryption email like Protonmail or Criptext?

Why not use a VPN to stop people on the internet from being able to hack or spy on you so easily?

The products and services required to ensure our digital freedoms are out there. We just have to get out of our comfort zones and use them.

It’s hard giving up on a social media identity and starting a new one. But it’s not as hard as you might think. There are like-minded communities all over the net. You could join anonymously and take part in one today.

Why not see your real friends in real life and talk to them online via private messaging apps like Wickr?

We’ve accepted social media as a necessary part of life and maybe that holds some truth.

But disclosing your real identity over the internet is certainly not necessary.