Do privacy advocates really care about privacy?

It seems there has been a paradigm shift in privacy activism; we went from protesting digital injustices in the name of privacy, autonomy and freedom of speech to reacting without autonomy, freedom of speech, or even privacy, to the same injustices we used to protest.

This reversal of values has been floating around my head for some time now, I wrote this blog post about it, originally it was a thread on the humane technology community forum. It was written as a response to another forum thread titled I Have to Get Facebook for College; in it the original poster commented how Facebook has a big grip on student’s life and work-flow, she also asked for tips to avoid Facebook’s undesirable “features” such as advertising and surveillance. I wrote your typical tech-head response: You need to install this, run this browser extension, setup this, configure that - But then I realized how complicit this type of advice I’m giving, this was a reactionary response.

My post on the humane tech forum sparked some controversy, commenter’s immune systems seemed to be resisting some sort of disease. Their almost automatic response cached my eye, not because it shows some kind of fatal flaw in their character, it doesn’t, it shows they are human; but we’re all human. The particular human mindset on the humane tech forum being in full display here is a strange mindset to be juxtaposed with humanity. Tristan Harris, head of the center of humane technology which brought to life the very same forum I posted my thoughts in, has a very sincere heart, listen to his podcast or some of his interviews and you’ll see it for yourself.

If the people behind the tech-lash, like Tristan Harris or internet users on Reddit’s privacy community, seem so genuine then what’s the problem? Don’t we need some sort of counter-cultural balance against big corporations doing injustices on a digital media landscape? Isn’t this what some tech enthusiast like myself would want out of a movement?

Well, yes, this sort of movement is exactly the kind someone inside my demographic would desire - this is exactly the problem at hand: the boxes we’re being drawn inside of.

On July 14th Donald Trump tweeted the following:

So interesting to see “Progressive” Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!

Link to the original thread.

Trump never fails to deliver reactionary talking points, on this tweet he endlessly goes after other countries, nations and territories as if they were facts of nature, as if they have always been there and always will. As if they were just more than lines drawn on a map; there has been a reversal, the map has become the territory.

Go back to “shithole” countries? I thought Trump wanted America to be a nation of winners! Trump marketed himself as someone capable of turning a country around, he said that’s what the USA needed, make America great again right? If the United States needs people like that, like Trump claims to be, then why is trump condemning people like that? Wouldn’t it be better if more people capable of change stay in your country? How are they gonna’ win once all the winners are gone for good?

Yet again, go back to where exactly? other lines drawn withing a map! We made them up, there not real. If you actually go to the border to sympathize with “dirty immigrants” you’d see the wall separates nothing; the barb-wire fence might be present, but so are the people and culture regardless of arbitrary lines on a map, the cultural bond stays.

Further reading / Wikipedia rabbit hole:

Map–territory relation, The medium is the message, Understanding Media.

Why would someone come to such backwards conclusions? If Trump supporters really cared for economic strength then why wouldn’t they embrace more people in the workforce providing with cheap labor? And why is going back to the good old days the ultimate contusion of this logic?

Because the initial premise isn’t true, either because it’s a false belief or wrong statement or the true intentions lie somewhere else; make america great again serves as a symbol, it’s not Trump’s true motto but it functions like it is to hide blatant racism behind economic intentions. The needs to outcast, classify, quantify and analyze as data points on an Excel spreadsheet are being canonized by our digital technologies. Our desire to abstract away the people we presuppose as “the others” has always been with us, for as long as humankind has been around some of us have demonized one another to justify injustices, but today our racism and misogyny have already been systematized: First in the form of racial segregation and an unequal workplace, but now with algorithmic bias, scientific racism and the systematically cold on/off-us/them ideology ingrained into our digital devices.

My observations in the privacy community lead me to believe that our group has fallen into this very same trap. Privacy minded folks tend to mock “the others”, fetishize a pre-Internet society and - in a very Trump-ian way - undermine the goals and values they claim to champion.

Here are some real examples that cached my eye. On Reddit’s sub-section of privacy enthusiasts r/privacy I found a user asking how could he remove himself from the Web completely, here’s the most up-voted answer:

1. Die.
2. Submit proof of death to all sites where you had accounts.

The joke-like subversion of expectations aside, this comment shines a light into the deep rooted tech pessimism within the community. On that very same post some other user simply replayed with:

Unplug your internet

Oh, the Irony! Turns out the command-line-loving-Linux-only-FOSS-super-tech-savvy people don’t like their technologies! They would rather quit the Net than to write the code necessary to fix it.

It also seems like we don’t really care for capital P Privacy, when it comes to avoiding digital surveillance the privacy community acts with ego. Rather than fighting for everyone’s right for (capital P) Privacy, each one of us fights for their own right to isolate themselves from the world; we seem to care for privacy with an uncapitalized p, meaning we care for privacy only in the terms of superficial aesthetics.

Our individual and atheistic understanding of privacy has, in some extreme cases, lead “privacy-woke people” to spy on others to protect themselves. With great irony, some people violate other’s right to privacy in the name of their own. The following is a real conversation on a privacy focused Telegram group:

User A:
What can I do when my family keeps posting pictures of me on facebook ?
I've told them numerous times I don't want to appear there regardless
of context but they are morons when it comes to that

User B:
Put a key logger on their phone and delete the pictures once uploaded

User B:
Did that with my family

User B:
Have all their social media

User A:
Well pointless

User B:
Ok

User A:
Facebook gets the data if it gets uploaded

User A:
But I like the ideea

User A:
😈

User B:
I bet Mark Zuckerberg is masturbating to your images

User A:
I'm sure of it dude

Me:
I hope you're kidding

On another Reddit post a user asked for tips for migrating from Google Chrome to Firefox, this was the top most response:

Honestly if you cared about privacy you should've left Chrome a long
time ago.

Then the original poster replied to that comment with shame, this OP reply is now deleted, but if I remember correctly he said something amongst the lines of how Google Chrome has bad ad practices and that he’s ashamed he ever used it.

The same commenter that shamed him for not using Firefox “soon enough” then said to him:

I agree about the adds, I'm simply pointing out that if anyone cares
about privacy using anything google is the anthesis of that.

Then I responded:

I just don't see a reason to say it like that. This approach is
common in the sub, this whole if you don't use X you don't care about
privacy thing gives privacy advocacy a bad rep.

At least we are not installing linux on our families and
friends computers...yet.

But his smugness remained, the privacy shame-er then replied to my criticism with:

It may not have been the best way to phrase it, but the meaning is sound.

This, almost asshole-atheist, way to respond to a genuine criticism of the pro-privacy unwritten rulebook shows the sort of reversal of values I talked about on the Humane tech forum:

We claim to care for free speech, yet we shame one each other into silence for not using the right software; we claim to champion technology, yet we glorify disconnecting from the Internet; we claim to care for privacy, yet at least some of us spy on their parents to protect their own privacy. Our value claims being proved false is not a sign of our community being “broken” - there’s no anomaly here, no problem to be fixed - this community functions just like it’s been setup to work: Privacy, freedom of speech and digital autonomy are not our goals, just like make america great again isn’t Donald Trump’s ultimate goal. It’s a distraction, blatant misdirection and deception.

Like all reactionary movements fear drives our privacy community forward. In a purely outcome based perspective I see no difference between Trump fear-mongering about immigrants and the privacy community’s fear of the government or big tech - they both serve as the mechanism to keep the moment afloat, mobilized paranoia.

On a different thread another reddit user wrote:

how can you sleep knowing what intel has on your system?

I'm scared as shit now and I consider going offline for good

I knew recently about the intel me and I'm completely paranoid
about it, I want it off of my PC, like this is my personal space

I'm not exaggerating

how can they make such a thing and govs don't give a single shit?

why the fuck does some one wants to collect this amount of data? and
don't dare and tell me to customize my experience and ads this
shit is big, like really big

all the conspiracy theories I didn't believe in are now being
more ... shall we say believable, for something like this to exist
in every single computer, server and firewall on the planet must
raise some question of why is this a thing?

this isn't for security I'm sure as hell

although I'm a computer nerd (not so good but I know my way around)
since I was 13 and I'm 21 I only got to low level stuff recently
like about 8 months or so but I really consider going offline for
good until a better online word comes to life

now I know for a fact that these tech corp. have some shitty background

I'm sure as shit that these companies have some data sharing contract
or some shit, like if MS doesn't get you by windows, intel gets you
by intel me

By looking at how “privacy extremists” act and react we can see the systematic meme-tics at work. Without a doubt there’s an embedded agenda in the privacy community, and it’s neither about privacy nor freedom.

To say it bluntly, the privacy community sometimes behaves like an Internet cult. All the signs are present. Steven Hassan is a mental health expert and author of several books regarding mind control and cult deprogramming, on his 2015 book Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults, and Beliefs he proposes a simple model to identify cult behavior on social groups, he calls it the B.I.T.E. model.

This model aims to reflect the early signs of a cult taking a bite out of someone’s life. B.I.T.E. stands for Behavior Control, Information Control, Thought Control & Emotional Control.

Behavior Control

• Promote dependence and obedience
• Modify behavior with rewards and punishments
• Dictate where and with whom you live
• Restrict or control sexuality
• Control clothing and hairstyle
• Regulate what and how much you eat and drink
• Deprive you of seven to nine hours of sleep
• Exploit you financially
• Restrict leisure time and activities
• Require you to seek permission for major decisions

Information Control

• Deliberately withhold and distort information
• Forbid you from speaking with ex-members and critics
• Discourage access to non-cult sources of information
• Divide information into Insider vs. Outsider doctrine
• Generate and use propaganda extensively
• Use information gained in confession sessions against you
• Gaslight to make you doubt your own memory
• Require you to report thoughts, feelings, & activities to superiors
• Encourage you to spy and report on others’ “misconduct”

Thought Control

• Instill Black vs. White, Us vs. Them, & Good vs. Evil thinking
• Change your identity, possibly even your name
• Use loaded language and cliches to stop complex thought
• Induce hypnotic or trance states to indoctrinate
• Teach thought-stopping techniques to prevent critical thoughts
• Allow only positive thoughts
• Use excessive meditation, singing, prayer, & chanting to block thoughts
• Reject rational analysis, critical thinking, & doubt

Emotional Control

• Instill irrational fears (phobias) of questioning or leaving the group
• Label some emotions as evil, worldly, sinful, or wrong
• Teach emotion-stopping techniques to prevent anger, homesickness
• Promote feelings of guilt, shame, & unworthiness
• Shower you with praise and attention (“love bombing”)
• Threaten your friends and family
• Shun you if you disobey or disbelieve
• Teach that there is no happiness or peace outside the group

Source: Steven Hassan’s BITE Model from Freedom of the mind’s resource section on their website.

Those bluet points are not definitive proof that X group acts like a cult, rather than a one size fits all solution think of it like a set of guidelines for identifying manipulative and problematic groups. Meaning cults may have some, but not all, listed characteristics in the chart.

On a later post I will analyze the privacy community point by point with the BITE model, for now let it serve as food for thought about this or other online communities, for example: The meme community, incels, red-pill-ers, MGTOW’s, etc…

If something is clear, it’s that the privacy community only protects privacy, freedom & liberty on a superficial level, they accomplish this by creating a narrative of us versus them fueled by tech paranoia and that one common outcome of this mentality is to isolate yourself from the Net.

“Get off our territory, the Web is ours! Big corporations are trying to censor us because they know we are right! They’re out to get you like it’s 1984! & we must destroy our enemy” not only applies with the privacy community, as you may guess, this logic is also popular amongst one important person:

The White House will be hosting a very big and very important Social Media Summit today. Would I have become President without Social Media? Yes (probably)! At its conclusion, we will all go to the beautiful Rose Garden for a News Conference on the Census and Citizenship.

Donald Trump, July 2019. Source.

The deeper hidden agenda of anti-tech, anti-progress and anti-empathy inside the privacy community may have more to do with classical right wing politics than with neo-liberal silicon valley.