I know data privacy is important and I know that big corporations like Meta became powerful enough to even manipulate elections using our data.
But, when I talk to people in general, most seem to not worry because they “have nothing to hide”, and most are only worried about their passwords, banking apps and not much else.
So, why should people worry about data privacy even if they have “nothing to hide”?
There’s a certain irony in the degree of privacy discussion and advocacy on the fediverse, where even your upvotes and downvotes are part of the public record.
That’s, coupled with lackluster security vetting for server software and infrastructure across multiple instances means that invariably cross correlating your likes of furry porn with the email used in the account is going to happen in the future.
A lot of people are going to end up burned thinking that “non-corporate operation” = ‘private.’
I’m curious how many people actually think that, although it’s unknowable of course.
You’re right in that a huge portion of people would certainly make that assumption.
However, i would argue that the fediverse & open source in general is more “privacy respecting” because we can have a discussion about exactly what is disclosed and why it is disclosed.
In practice, using the web without leaking information about our preferences is pretty much impossible. “Privacy” (on and off the web) is never about “no disclosure”, it’s always about what needs to be disclosed, why it needs to be disclosed, and whether I personally am comfortable disclosing in exchange for whatever service I am seeking.
I has some degree of privacy. A better way to look at it is to say: It’s less worst ! But full privacy is to shut down all your connected electric aplliances, never connect to the web, sell your house and go living of the grid.