> in practice it's like getting angry with individual spammers. It's futile.
Completely agree. In fact, I think the author makes that point later in the article too. What is worth highlighting is the fact that "Educate people about privacy" cannot work. People share things publicly with a lot of different motivations. A potential employer may be interested in where we usually travel to but so would a stalker too.
Instead of trying to discourage people from sharing such info, I think we need to standardize the associated intent with a user's data. Most of us won't be bothered by targeted ads but anyone surely will be about Girls Around Me.
I agree that it's unlikely to fix the problem in its entirety, but I'm a bit short of easy fixes and I still think it's an important thing to do. And, although it's a politically fraught area, I'm pretty adamant that we should not always conflate explaining the world's hazards with blaming people for shitty stuff that happens to them.
Indeed, it is a very important thing to include a mature explanation of privacy and it's importance in education. What I meant was that this is not going to fix this problem. We need to figure out ways to stop the misuse of user data.
Comments
> in practice it's like getting angry with individual spammers. It's futile.
Completely agree. In fact, I think the author makes that point later in the article too. What is worth highlighting is the fact that "Educate people about privacy" cannot work. People share things publicly with a lot of different motivations. A potential employer may be interested in where we usually travel to but so would a stalker too.
Instead of trying to discourage people from sharing such info, I think we need to standardize the associated intent with a user's data. Most of us won't be bothered by targeted ads but anyone surely will be about Girls Around Me.
> "Educate people about privacy" cannot work
I agree that it's unlikely to fix the problem in its entirety, but I'm a bit short of easy fixes and I still think it's an important thing to do. And, although it's a politically fraught area, I'm pretty adamant that we should not always conflate explaining the world's hazards with blaming people for shitty stuff that happens to them.
Indeed, it is a very important thing to include a mature explanation of privacy and it's importance in education. What I meant was that this is not going to fix this problem. We need to figure out ways to stop the misuse of user data.