Against the Commodification of Information Privacy
Back in May, the New York Times published a piece by the technology entrepreneur, Heidi Messer, in which she argued that the time has come to “stop fetishizing privacy,” understood as control over one’s personal information. Her basic contention is that the modern narrative about information privacy – that is, control over information about ourselves – is outdated. She notes that we live in “a networked world,” and that the internet “is built for sharing things at little to no cost.” And tech companies not only provide valuable services, but income to millions of employees—all because they have access to the fuel that allows them to drive “growth for the world’s economy.”
Big Brother Is, In Fact, Watching
The US government is tracking people who oppose its unlawful and inhuman practices. In February of 2019, I filed Communiques with UN Special Rapporteurs, asking for their intervention with the US government. UN human rights mechanisms are a last resort, utilized when a person’s own government is harming them, and refuses requests for transparency about their abuses of power.
On the Moral Duty to Leave Facebook
In an essay published last November, the philosopher S. Matthew Liao asks: do we have a moral duty to leave Facebook? His answer: not yet. In light of Facebook’s destructive effect on information privacy, I’m not sure the answer to his question shouldn’t be an unequivocal “yes.”
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