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this post was submitted on 08 Nov 2023
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Privacy
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Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
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I feel so powerless, so hopeless.
Bills aren't being passed by lawmakers because like many of us who care about privacy, they have not heard about the abilities of data brokers and have no visibility into how rampant and disgusting and invasive their behavior is.
Friends and family I talk to don't care. "Oh well, what are they going to do, find me personally?"
I feel if people were able to
look themselves up
in these databases, they would fear it as wellPersonally, I'm just waiting for a massive data broker leak to happen that involves politicians and other useless wanks like that. That'll really jump their bones.
@varsock Holy crap. I’m not the only one. Thank you! Outside of my coworkers no one seems to understand and say variations of the same think you mentioned. Scary.
thanks.
The last gleam of hope I had was last year when John Oliver did an episode on data brokers. He in turn went and purchased data that would match congressmen in the D.C. area, along with their "interests." He jokingly threatened to release it (bc congressmen tend to act on an issue if it affects them personally). I thought that would be huge, everybody would see how rampant and invasive data collection would be. I was thrilled for a breakthrough.
but so far no movement, hasn't been released. I wonder if people wrote to John Oliver and his team if we will get an answer haha
More likely that the powers that be pressured HBO for him to back down.
I have the same experience. People think I'm wacko for caring about this stuff.
Bottom line: you can't fix stupid, and almost everyone is stupid.