Myths about Privacy, as listed by Richards
A few myths about privacy that should be addressed; a reconstruction of the ideas brought up by Richards.
Here are 4 commonly cited beliefs about privacy that we’ll be targeting:
1. Privacy is about hiding dark secrets & those with nothing to hide have nothing to fear
2. Privacy is about concealing creepy things that other people do with your data
3. Privacy means being able to control how your data is used
4. Privacy is dying
1. Privacy is about hiding dark secrets & those with nothing to hide have nothing to fear
This concept of “if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear” is actually very harmful. Historically, people have used this concept to shame people who advocate for privacy and justify immoral actions. For example, Nazi leader Joseph Goebbels famously first coined this frame, and yet it’s been used to justify surveillance programs in modern (supposedly progressive) democracies like the United States and the United Kingdom (Richards 72).
Data privacy should be a fundamental expectation, and breaches of it are “wrong on its own terms. ” We’ve seen such violations of privacy in cases of blackmail or revenge port, and the countries like the UK have cracked down aggressively on the sharing of private sexual images and videos without consent (Richards 74).
2. Privacy is about concealing creepy things that other people do with your data
Creepiness is commonly cited as a good factor in whether or not something violated privacy norms. When we get an ad on our social media after just having a conversation about that topic, we feel “creeped out.” Products like eavesdropping Barbie dolls, social media experiments to control user emotions, state surveillance, or even home AIs that supposedly listen in on our daily lives are criticized for being creepy. But using creepiness as the delineating factor of whether or not privacy has been breached is very ineffective (Richards 81).
First, it is overinclusive. Many things that users feel are creepy could be chalked up to a sense of unfamiliarity with new technology. A good example is Facebook’s News Feed feature which received much initial criticism because users were not accustomed to having all their friend’s posts on the same page. Yet now, we see this as the norm and the best way to consume infinite amounts of content and posts (Richards 82).
It is also underinclusive, almost for the same reason. As the saying goes, “what you don’t know won’t hurt you”: if users are unaware of their data being collected or cannot fully understand the extent of how their privacy is being breached, they cannot feel the “creeps” at all. Government surveillance is often a good example because citizens are often unaware. In fact, George Orwell’s book 1984 sparked many people’s imaginations about the extent to which they were being tracked and jumpstarted a lot of privacy legislation.
Finally, using creepiness as a rule is easily bypassed. Human emotions are easily manipulated, and once something becomes mainstream for a long enough period of time, we become inundated with it and no longer see it as creepy. An example of manipulation is Target’s pregnancy prediction scandal, in which the retail company sent a teenager pregnancy product coupons because it knew she was pregnant before her own father (Hill). This went viral, and people criticized Target for being “creepy,” so instead, they now intersperse these targeted ads with distractors so they feel less manipulative, even when they still prey upon a period of vulnerability for pregnant women (Richards 84).
3. Privacy means being able to control how your data is used
Privacy isn’t actually about control. This might come as a shock, but expecting users to be responsible for how their data is collected, used, and distributed is both unfair and impossible. Many landmark papers and books have defined privacy as allowing users to “determine for themselves how & to what extent their information is shared with others” (Richards 90). Yet this expectation requires all users to have a firm understanding of not just privacy but of the technology behind the apps they are using, the implications of every action they take, and understanding the legalese in terms of conditions and privacy regulation.
This is overwhelming, and companies are aware, so in the status quo, companies give users an illusion of control. By telling users they are a “completely transparent” corporation that gives users complete control over how their data is used, they can wash their hands of criticism. Yet, these same companies hide privacy settings & give unclear instructions on how to change, for example, default settings that violate the privacy of social media users. In addition, by using this messaging, privacy breaches can be blamed on the user for making bad decisions (Richards 91).
4. Privacy is dying
Privacy is not dying, and anyone that tells you so has something to gain from people thinking that it is. For example, the NSA, large social media companies, etc. And yes, while there is exponentially more information being collected about people today than in the past, this does not imply in any way a change in how privacy should be considered (Richards 101).
A variation of this belief is that the new “Generation Z” doesn’t care about privacy (Marlatt). And while younger people do post more of themselves onto the internet, this is still a flawed belief because they fundamentally interact with the internet in a different way because it defines their social structures and sources of information. In fact, a recent Berkeley study found that younger people might be even more vigilant and engage in more privacy-protective behaviors than previous generations (Hoofnagle et al.).
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Works Cited
Fischer, Jeremy, and Rachel Fredericks. “The Creeps as a Moral Emotion.” Ergo, an Open Access Journal of Philosophy, vol. 7, no. 20201214, Mar. 2020, https://doi.org/10.3998/ergo.12405314.0007.006. Accessed 27 Aug. 2021.
Hill, Kashmir. “How Target Figured out a Teen Girl Was Pregnant before Her Father Did.” Forbes, Feb. 2012, www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/?sh=56f7af766686. Accessed 2 Mar. 2023.
Hoofnagle, Chris Jay, et al. “How Different Are Young Adults from Older Adults When It Comes to Information Privacy Attitudes and Policies?” SSRN Electronic Journal, 2010, https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1589864.
Marlatt, Jordan. “Data Privacy Is Different for Gen Z.” Morning Consult, 9 Nov. 2022, morningconsult.com/2022/11/09/data-privacy-is-different-for-gen-z/.
Nissenbaum, Helen. “Privacy as Contextual Integrity.” Washington Law Review, vol. 79, no. 1, Feb. 2004, p. 119, digitalcommons.law.uw.edu/wlr/vol79/iss1/10/.
Richards, Neil. Why Privacy Matters. Oxford Univ Press, 2021.
Excellent post, lately this has been a topic of interest for me. Thanks for sharing. Have you heard of LM Sacasas? He is a philosopher of technology and has a Substack called “The Convivial Society”. He writes in the vein of Jacque Ellul, Neil Postman, and Albert Borgmann. I think you’ll enjoy his essays considering your interests. Then you will absolutely love the work of John Danaher. Check out his blog. He has a series on the philosophy of mind-uploading: https://philosophicaldisquisitions.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-philosophy-of-mind-uploading-series.html?m=1