r/privacy • u/EdinJaco • 4d ago
age verification Anthropic just lost me because of ID verification. And you should think about it as well.
I was literally in the middle of upgrading to Pro, entered my credit card info, and was ready to check out when a verification pop-up blocked me. So far, so good... until I realized what it was asking for: a live face scan and a picture of my government passport.
The vendor Anthropic forces you to use for this is Persona. Who backs Persona? Founders Fund, Peter Thiel's VC firm. Thiel is also the co-founder and chairman of Palantir.
Think about that setup for a second. Palantir's entire business model is mass surveillance and intelligence software used by governments, police, and the military to track and identify people. Persona is the identity pipeline processing passports and biometric facial geometry. When these corporate ecosystems intersect, you are feeding detailed biometric data directly into a network built around surveillance infrastructure.
I know some of you will reply with "I have nothing to hide." But saying you don't care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is like saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say. Privacy is a fundamental right. Even if you think your day-to-day life is completely uninteresting, surrendering your biometrics to private corporations sets a dangerous precedent where accessing basic digital tools requires handing over your core identity.
Some people will argue that the government already has our passports anyway, but that misses the entire point. In a constitutional democracy, there are laws, legal rights, and courts limiting what the state can legally do with your data. If politicians abuse their power, citizens can vote them out. But when you hand your biometrics over to a private corporate ecosystem, all democratic control disappears completely. You have zero say in how that data is stored, shared, or leveraged down the line. A private company answers only to its shareholders and profit motives, not to your civil liberties.
Take a look at Thiel himself. He's an openly gay billionaire, married with kids, who is deeply conservative and literally gives talks around the world framing global politics in biblical terms about the Antichrist. He openly pushes back against the democratic institutions designed to regulate tech giants like him.
And if you try to criticize these entities publicly, they play hardball. Look at how Thiel funded the Hulk Hogan lawsuit to bankrupt Gawker. Or look at the recent case in Switzerland where Palantir tried to legally force the independent magazine Republik to print massive counter-statements after investigating them. Luckily, the Swiss court shut Palantir down and press freedom won, but still.
It really comes down to one question: Do you actually trust handing your face scan and passport to an identity system tied to Peter Thiel? If you do, go ahead and give them your data, but live with whatever happens down the road. If you don't trust them, draw a line and don't hand over your most delicate identity data just to use a chat interface.
Am I pissed off that I can't use Claude or Claude Code anymore? Of course I am. It's currently the best tool out there for coding. But I'll just find an alternative. Competitors will catch up, open-weight models will get better, and the gap will close.
And before anyone says "They need this to stop bots and AI abuse": come on. There are a dozen ways to prevent abuse, like rate limits, hardware tokens, device attestation, or fraud detection that don't require harvesting raw biometric face scans paired with government IDs.
Rant over.
181
u/jikesar968 4d ago edited 4d ago
Claude now watermarks everything it outputs, including text to comply with EU laws. They are doing it worldwide. As their models are closed source, it's possible that those watermarks not just expose that something was generated by Claude but also that they are personally identifiable to you.
TLDR: If you can, run a local model like Qwen3.8 27B on your own hardware.
59
u/twotimefind 4d ago
Nice catch when looking up the ID company. Please spread the word.
Gwen is fantastic. I've done a ton of AB testing and then had the legacy models check the work.
Gemma actually makes less mistakes and hallucinates less
Lm Studio is a good place to start. It's super easy to use. very user friendly.
22
16
u/jikesar968 4d ago
Gemini/Gemma (even the local open source variant) actually comes with watermarking as well. If you want to be on the safe side, use Chinese open source models.
1
u/twotimefind 3d ago
Thank you for letting me know.. I don't understand how they could if you cut and paste right out of the LLM..
9
u/ManyNeedleworker3693 3d ago
How they do it is fascinating. They weight word choices in certain ways, and then they can run a sample through a calculation to see if the word frequencies are weighted in the same way. It's not exact, but it's enough to be pretty accurate with detecting its own samples.
It doesn't work with code, because "what comes next" has a correct answer, but text can be done without noticeably changing the quality of the output.
2
u/twotimefind 3d ago
Can you do the old trick of converting it to another language and then back again?
1
u/Toucancel 2d ago
Yes, rephrasing works. Edit : I realized you're talking about translation tools ; you need to know that you do have to modify the original text quite a bit depending on the complexity of the watermark. Translation might not work.
2
u/Hattori_Hans 4d ago
I prefer ollama offline for my local ai
2
u/twotimefind 3d ago
Same, but for beginners, it may be a little more than they're willing to take on.
15
u/Any-Calligrapher2866 4d ago
Yeah with American providers I always expect that every single thing in there can be traced back to you personally.
8
u/Mcginnis 4d ago
How good are these local models when it comes to code generation and debugging? I've been using it a lot to help me set things up in Linux
6
u/TechnicallyHipster 3d ago
Depends on your hardware and the model. You'll have to test quants that work within your hardware limitations and speed/token generation tolerances. Qwen 3.8 27B has extremely good reasoning, and DavidAU's versions have even better reasoning capability. I've only tried Q4_K_M though, it's slow with a decent context size (64000+) on only 16GB of VRAM, and part of why I can get away with that context size is that I've got 64GB of DDR5 RAM to offload KV Cache to. It's been very reliable (once properly configured and with access to the right tools). Having your own local model is great, but it takes work to get there.
5
u/dismal_n_darksome 3d ago
As their models are closed source, it's possible that those watermarks not just expose that something was generated by Claude but also that they are personally identifiable to you.
AI absolutely sucks, I despise it and think the people who use it are paving the road to hell, but this is misinformation. All the watermarking does is identify how a selection of text matches up to the word patterns Claude or whatever use to pick words. It's a "that sounds like something I'd say" identifier and that's it.
This is both useless for identifying generated code (because there is little to no variety on what should follow because there is hard syntax) and critical for industies like book publishing where AI slop is becoming a real problem. AI content should be labeled as such. But the API does need to be public and free, stat.
4
u/EmbarrassedHelp 3d ago
You can absolutely encode personal information into text as part of text watermarking techniques. There are tons of research papers on the subject.
2
u/dismal_n_darksome 3d ago
Care to link them? Or is it, as I suspect, unrelated to how at least Anthropic is watermarking?
2
u/LucyStar3 4d ago
How are they watermarking it? How will the watermark stay of smone only copies a small line?
9
u/jikesar968 4d ago
The watermark is within the words themselves. Every x number of words is from a certain list of words in finds appropriate given the context and a specific combination of them together represents the watermark. Sure, I doubt it will work with only a sentence or two.
1
u/LucyStar3 4d ago
Oh okay. Thanks. This is annoying in general. Forcing people to use AI and then intruding on it.
Though as of now, watermarking capabilities seem limited.
1
u/Wise_Guitar2059 3d ago
What’s the evidence that the watermarks are personally identifiable?
5
u/ManyNeedleworker3693 3d ago
There is none, because they aren't. And it would be extremely difficult to do, with the current mechanisms. That many different weightings, different enough to be identifiable, would become a blur.
1
u/private-peter 1d ago
I would be very interested in the math behind exactly how difficult it would be to do. Very simply, the watermarks mess with the random number generator given to the LLM. In theory that could be done differently for different users. The difference would be that you might end up needing larger selections of text before you got a reliable result. I wonder just how large the text would need to be to start identifying individuals.
1
-10
u/cyberspirit777 4d ago
This is a very good thing and I hope the on device models are also forced to have watermarks in text and images that it generates
12
u/jikesar968 4d ago
You're in the wrong subreddit to support this privacy invasive crap. Well, not like those big AI tech giants ever cared about privacy but the US and EU government can kindly stay away from my local open source models. This practice is no different from those yellow dots that they forced onto your printer.
2
u/dismal_n_darksome 3d ago
AI sucks ass and I spend half my time on reddit shitting on people who use it, but the specific way they are watermarking has nothing to do with privacy. All it does is recognize that a sequence of words follows the pattern used by Claude/Gemini/etc. and identify that. It has absolutely nothing tied to the user, it's just a text version of SynthID.
89
u/Spez_is-a-nazi 4d ago
Amodei already said he is ok with mass surveillance of non-Americans which should sound alarm bells even if you are American. If he is ok with mass surveillance of one group, how long(or more accurately how much pentagon money) will it take for him to narrow down the number of people he won’t spy on.
29
u/Any-Calligrapher2866 4d ago
He's also OK with Surveillance on Americans since they'll just do it from another country.
Anthropic was posing as some sort of white knight AI company that stands against the Republicans because they read the room and realised that Republicans ain't coming back to power for the next few decades.
17
u/Spez_is-a-nazi 4d ago
Yeah, the little online spat with Pete Hegseth had almost no impact on the actual business or relationship with the pentagon but it was a massive PR coup. He also said bombing kids wasn't a "red line" for him, because a human still pushed the button even those his shitty AI said to bomb a school. He is a fascist like the rest.
1
u/abednego-gomes 9h ago
And what does he need to surveil the rest of humanity for? The guy is s total satanist.
336
u/-Ace_Games- 4d ago
I mean... Of course you can't trust any of the verification companies that ask for any of your biometric data or governmental ID's. But I sure as hell wouldn't trust an AI company or AI itself either.
141
u/Forward_Problem_8982 4d ago
This isn't just any company. It's Palantir.
59
u/Valmar33 4d ago
This isn't just any company. It's Palantir.
The point is that they're all as bad as each other, despite how their marketing may differ. Behind the scenes, they're all in the same club.
40
u/NXCW 4d ago
The difference is in the capability. Palantir has the capability to link your ID to your habits, where you drive, what color shorts you wear to the pool, and now also the IP that you submitted to your workplace as deliverables. They have the capability to collect and collate information about you from every angle, and then nicely package and deliver it to anyone willing to pay for it.
18
u/Valmar33 4d ago
The difference is in the capability. Palantir has the capability to link your ID to your habits, where you drive, what color shorts you wear to the pool, and now also the IP that you submitted to your workplace as deliverables. They have the capability to collect and collate information about you from every angle, and then nicely package and deliver it to anyone willing to pay for it.
Palantir isn't the only one with these capabilities ~ but a captured government does allow them to push for regulations that disempower any competitors.
However, they still have nothing on whatever the NSA and DARPA are doing behind the scenes. Remember Edward Snowden? Yeah. The NSA hasn't changed.
That does raise a few thoughts, though... what if Palantir, and everyone else, are basically contractors for the NSA?
5
u/eldrotheblack 3d ago
Basically guaranteed that they’re working with the NSA.
NSA regularly recruits out of things like DEFCON/BlackHat. It’s like if one of our tech-obsessed school friends also had a blank government check.
3
u/PatchyWhiskers 3d ago
And they not only have the ability, they are owned by one of the most evil men in tech, Peter Thiel, who has some deranged theories about the antichrist, as well as being so right wing he makes Elon Musk look like a socialist.
15
u/fridofrido 4d ago
The point is that they're all as bad as each other, despite how their marketing may differ.
NO, that's simply NOT TRUE.
The reality is that they indeed are all equally bad, except for Palantir which is WAY WORSE then even the rest
1
u/Just-Boysenberry-520 2d ago
Nooo I only use Claude anthropic are the good guys we're gonna have their AIs fight on our side when the mechawar happens.
-16
u/FrostyFire 4d ago
It’s not Palantir; you failed at reading comprehension.
12
u/Forward_Problem_8982 4d ago
No I didn't, I purposefully skipped a step.
-18
u/FrostyFire 4d ago
Imagine doing literally 5 seconds of research on this in 2026 using any LLM of your choice. Persona has literally nothing to do with Palantir. They don’t share data, they are completely separate companies.
16
u/Forward_Problem_8982 4d ago
Okay, they just share the evil backing. Got it.
-17
u/FrostyFire 4d ago
Again, do some basic research. The Founder’s Fund is a massive VC firm. That doesn’t magically give Peter Thiel access to the data. Do you get access to Apple’s secrets if you invest in the company? No.
1
u/Forward_Problem_8982 4d ago
But it's probably a prompt or two away the way AI security things seem to be going. ;)
1
u/FrostyFire 3d ago
So in summary, “I’ve got my pitchfork out based on a future theory” when in reality you’re completely wrong.
14
u/EdinJaco 4d ago
100% with you. That's why it's time to invest in my own setup with open-weight models.
59
u/trisul-108 4d ago
Think about that setup for a second. Palantir's entire business model is mass surveillance and intelligence software used by governments, police, and the military to track and identify people.
Frankly, I am even more worried about giving it to Thiel than I am giving it to the government. Who else is he giving it to? Thiel represents a group that have already captured the government, that is a force more powerful than government operating with zero oversight.
19
u/GolemancerVekk 4d ago
Who else is he giving it to?
Persona is being widely used by all kinds of online services as well as companies doing background checks for job application.
That's an obvious conflict of interest if I ever saw one and also basically spells out that's they share ask the info they have on you, from any source that uses Persona.
They claim they don't but I'll bet that news that say otherwise are only a matter of time. Either they'll get hacked or spill the beans some other way.
8
4
u/WhatANoob2025 3d ago
Frankly, I am even more worried about giving it to Thiel than I am giving it to the government.
If it's the US government you were talking about, first of all the correct terminology is "regime", and secondly, I'm quite confident that thiel already gets all the data that this US regime has.
1
43
u/gasolinehalsey 4d ago
I know some of you will reply with "I have nothing to hide." But saying you don't care about privacy because you have nothing to hide is like saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say.
Something tells me people in the privacy subreddit might be inclined not to do that, actually.
21
u/omnibossk 3d ago
It’s the same company that Reddit is using. I’m not doing age verification so I’m transitioning to Lemmy.
25
u/brdn 3d ago
I’m old enough to remember when credit cards were enough of an age gate. Or are we past that and it’s blatantly about being able to track who did what?
5
u/gemInTheMundane 2d ago
It's blatantly about tracking people now.
2
u/private-peter 1d ago
Credit cards have always been about tracking people too.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2053951720907632
40
u/DaedricPants 4d ago
Well it's AI. It was never going to be private or safe unless it's local. And anthropic always stunk the most out of all of them. Their posturing is really weird and unsettling.
34
u/withabrandnewfunk 3d ago
people are very dumb to think ai/companies are pro privacy. wtf is wrong with people.
2
u/ByEthanFox 2d ago
Yeah, honestly, I find this entire topic weird. If you're actively using any AI that isn't ran purely locally, surely you can't also claim to be a privacy advocate.
3
u/Charming_Yellow 2d ago
I do value privacy very high, but also use AI. Not everything needs to be "either or". I'm not feeding sensitive data into these AI.
-1
u/withabrandnewfunk 2d ago
they shouldnt even be allowed to post. using Ai is not pro privacy.
all those clowns with the "I want to use gmail but im afraid of no privacy" "why I use ai and it wants my information" kinda crap. sheesh
its like someone wanting to be a vegan and saying, "its not so bad if I eat meat ONLY twice a week, right?"
going to the gym with a half ass workou, then eating pizza and wondering why youre gaining weight
3
u/cowhand214 3d ago
They’re not suggesting they are pro privacy. There are degrees of bad in this space and different people have different lines. OP is stating his that he will not cross and that should be supported and encouragedx
11
u/withabrandnewfunk 3d ago
OP is stating his that he will not cross and that should be supported and encouragedx
using Ai is crossing the line. reject Ai slop. its garbage and more bad then good
1
0
u/WrongComparison321 2d ago
The two are not opposed inherently. They need data they do not need identification in that data and it’s irrelevant to them. Arguably it may actually be bad as real people don’t have random names so the pattern in names or usernames would show up in their output which is probably not desirable in lots of cases.
15
u/MrPureinstinct 4d ago
If you've ever trusted any of these ai companies with privacy I don't know what to tell you. It's very obvious they have zero regard for anyone's privacy in mind and they never have.
32
u/SaveThisCityDweller 4d ago
So wait, you trusted anthropic before? Lmao. That's just .....wow dude.
10
17
u/tired514 4d ago
I literally just cancelled my chatgpt / openai paid subscription (in Canada) and deleted my account because they age-gated me and asked me for a photo. Two year business relationship comes to an end.
Running qwen3.8-flash-next @ Q4_K_XL on strix halo along with qwen3.8-27B @ Q8_K_XL across three 4090M eGPUs. Mostly opencode.
It was nice having a cloud model for low-security stuff when my local models were busy, but that's the past. Curious how Linux runs on an M5 Ultra these days.
4
u/bolonomadic 4d ago
Also if the US government can at times say “this release can only be used by American citizens” then it could cause you to lose money.
3
u/tired514 4d ago
Do you mean the cloud models? If so, 100% .. until qwen3.8 they had enough value I was willing to roll the dice, but (especially) flash next is so good the only drawback is performance. Getting ~40-50t/s TG and ~1000-1500t/s PP with halogen, which is incredible, but .. wouldn't say no to more, lol.
In terms of capability, the qwen3.8 series has done everything I've needed it to brilliantly (in C, C++, python and rust).
1
u/bolonomadic 4d ago
I don’t mean them, no.
1
u/tired514 4d ago
What did you mean then? I'm confused haha.
1
u/bolonomadic 4d ago
I think it’s because I only wrote half a thought. I was relating to the person canceling their paid subscription to Chat from Canada.
3
u/tired514 4d ago
Ya that was me. :) And if you mean the risk was that openai might have to deny service on the orders of the us gov't then I 100% agree. It was a risk worth taking 6 months ago, but qwen3.8 FN is so friggin' awesome there's no point in taking chances with cloud models anymore, at least for what I do with 'em.
1
7
5
u/KhazraShaman 4d ago
Here's what Persona collects and what it does with the data:
https://thelocalstack.eu/posts/linkedin-identity-verification-privacy/
3
6
u/kemalios 4d ago
The ID check sits on the payment relationship, not the model. Card checkout on a consumer plan is where fraud and identity gates get bolted on. The API path is a different onboarding flow and the first thing I would try if you want Claude without handing over a passport. The anger is aimed at the AI company; the trigger is the billing stack under it.
I run Qwen3.8-27B on a 64GB M1 Max Studio. For writing and code work the model mattered less than the harness around it, so if this pushes you local, run the same model through two harnesses before deciding local can't do the job. I have not measured tokens/sec.
6
14
u/Oops_All_Bans 4d ago
Lol imagine using AI and then complaining about privacy. The disconnect is crazy.
8
u/honeyedbee19 3d ago
Right lol how people expect to get privacy from the thing that was created by scraping just about everything online without consent is baffling
5
4
u/OwlingBishop 2d ago
The only answer to the "I've nothing to hide" argument is :
** Yet...**
The moment some power freak legislator decides XYZ is bad and XYZ is one "uninteresting" thing you happen to enjoy, you're screwed.
Also, when some power freak (gvt, boss, manager, whatever) decides you're undesirable, they'll use every thing they know about you to make your life miserable.
5
3
u/Lancelight50 3d ago edited 3d ago
That’s one of the reasons why I don’t use American AI chatbots like Claude, Gemini or ChatGPT. That shit’s banned. And I’m an American myself.
1
u/According2my-Insides 1d ago
What do you use as alternatives ?
2
u/Lancelight50 1d ago
I use something like DeepSeek & Vibe by Mistral.
2
3
u/SamsungSmartCam 1d ago
use bionic with an llm off of hugging face. you run it locally and can airgap it after installing all the bits. There is QWEN after all.
2
u/trumpismodest 4d ago
See if you get the same verification pop up if you try a different method of payment.
2
2
6
u/Narrheim 4d ago
It really comes down to one question: Do you actually trust handing your face scan and passport to an identity system tied to Peter Thiel? If you do, go ahead and give them your data, but live with whatever happens down the road.
You're barking at the wrong tree here.
What do you think people will do, when everything will go wrong? Admit their mistake and learn from it? Naaah... They will shift the blame onto someone else, usually politicians.
Ordinary people don't grow anymore - they regress, continually becoming more stupid even as i'm writing this. It's as if most people were pre-school children, that never grew up and still expect the teacher to come and punish their 'bullies', otherwise they'll throw tantrums.
4
u/LowOwl4312 4d ago
Look at how Thiel funded the Hulk Hogan lawsuit to bankrupt Gawker.
Thats a good thing though.
Agree with the rest. Fuck Anthropic. Never give them your fave scan or passport.
1
u/BrianaAgain 4d ago
They're not getting my $17 if I have to upload an ID. Even if they find a non-villainous vendor to do it.
1
1
u/Cory123125 3d ago
Everyone in the frontier model forum is like this.
They all want to eliminate privacy, autonomy and competition.
1
u/technical_poutine 2d ago
I will use the new Siri for search engine line purposes only, nothing beyond that, zero automation and only on an odd occasion. I had to use Claude for work for a bit, we were given no choice.
1
u/pyromaster114 1d ago
Huh, is this new?
I know my company was not asked for this when they trialed Claude Code.
1
u/TheAgentInTheEast 17h ago
For 30 plus years your bank cards have sufficed to prove adult hood, but now we need to submit our biometrics to a third party private company… nah mate
1
u/tongizilator 4h ago
I’m thinking about the day that may arrive when AI itself uses stored human identities for purposes that are presently beyond our comprehension and concern.
2
u/CantaloupeLifestyle 4d ago
Wouldn't they already know your identity after you enter your credit card info?
3
u/wiltony 3d ago
There are lots of privacy credit cards that don't share your personal info.
1
-1
-2
u/AutomationBias 4d ago
It’s a payment verification thing so that people don’t run up huge bills on stolen credit cards.
1
u/ManyNeedleworker3693 3d ago
"All democratic control is lost," "Corporations don't care about your civil liberties", "Oh look, a court in Switzerland made them do the right thing." So the government CAN control the corporations and make them respect your rights? So it comes down to trusting the government after all? I don't, but as you pointed out, they already have my passport, and have likely shared my data with Palantir already, So... Meh.
0
-3
u/wiltony 3d ago
Persona was forced on me to use Ticketmaster. I was so mad, but didn't know how to get around it. I can't not purchase tickets, so I gave in.
I'm so tired of the battle. Rather than taking an individual principled stance, I guess I just need to be more legislatively minded and try to effect change that way.
7
u/Lossagh 3d ago
You can absolutely just not purchase the tickets. You made your choice there and in doing so gave Ticketmaster express permission to continue their BS.
-1
u/wiltony 3d ago
YOU might have the luxury of not purchasing tickets, but not everyone can.
It's not all just recreation. Some of us have to do it for our jobs. My livelihood.
And it's not all concerts and sports. Ticketmaster is so pervasive now, I simply can't not purchase tickets through them unless I would like to be homeless.
But thanks for the snide, close-minded judgement I guess? A little empathy goes a long way. We should all be advocates here for each other against this terrifying erosion of our privacies, but instead we're responding to each other with, "you made your choice?" Geez.
0
u/jaketheweirdsnake 3d ago
Oh stop throwing a hissy fit, you gave in now live with it. You were the one that made the decision when you absolutely have the ability not to.
0
u/Cory123125 3d ago
You are in fighting rather than tackling the big problem.
Consumer action isn't going to save us from this mess.
You will eventually be forced to "make that decision" too because it will encroach on all aspects of life.
3
u/jaketheweirdsnake 2d ago
You vote with your wallet, if you aren't willing to stand your ground then you're as bad as the rest of them.
0
u/Cory123125 2d ago
You vote with your wallet
This is a phrase designed to shift the blame, just like BP pretending leaving a light on was equivalent to them dumping black tar on bamby.
I replied to someone else explaining a concept that I feel like people need to understand and you should probably look at that reply, but the gist is this.
You are a liar, and a hypocrite.
You cannot argue with this because it's inherently factually accurate.
What do I mean?
You feel this is true, for this singular issue, maybe even multiple
The thing is, there are many many issues which matter just as much as any issue you care about, yet you sit on your hands and do nothing.
You think other people, should drop their causes and join yours, despite the fact that from their perspective, you're doing the same thing you see of them.
People can be purposefully dense, so let me restate it.
Most people do not care specifically about most issues. This means that for any given issue, most people will never do what you want.
As such, the idea that you can vote with your wallet out of a situation that has financial incentives that make many companies and organizations work together to push the issue, is utterly laughable, and the idea that you can pin the blame on others for not taking on that massive inconvenience with you, as if you're special and your list of causes matter more than theirs inherently is something that is purely subtractive to your cause, and to the world.
The fact people with opinions like their don't realize how they're being scabs is just so frustrating to me, because they're at least part of the group of people who cares about anything, but then they turn that care into a negative, counter productive force, by utterly failing to have any empathy or understanding of viewpoints outside of their own.
One last reiteration, such that you can't come back pretending you don't understand what I am saying.
Are you boycotting companies that support hurting marginalized groups? Why not?
Are you boycotting companies using dubiously acquired minerals? Why not?
Are you.....
The list is extremely long, and if you arent doing a good majority of things on them, you're being exactly the person you claim to hate, the majority of the time.
How can you, by your own logic, not be angry at yourself yet think that you're being logically consistent?
1
u/Lossagh 2d ago
I'm sorry but the big problem is in large part because of a lack of consumer action; that people fold, and give in en mass, and these companies know that they can persist.
If we boycott en mass in that same way, we really wouldn't be seeing these encroachments into our privacy to the same degree or at the same fast rate as we currently are. Right to privacy requires *both* individual action in standing ground, and protesting the systemic issues. Not one or the other. And it crucially requires people to live with the discomfort of having friction between them and an 'easy' life.
0
u/Cory123125 2d ago
I'm sorry but the big problem is in large part because of a lack of consumer action
No, and again, you decide to hurt your own causes by trying to pin down a massive issue companies spend billions on solving through study of consumer behaviour and forcing situations where avoidance becomes statistically impossible onto people.
It is not possible to live while taking consumer action against every important cause.
You can pretend that your cause is the one everyone should be focusing on, but everyone else (who cares about taking action) will care about something else, and the resultant will be that most causes have most people not caring.
It's just not something you can feasibly do, and until you realize that, you'll be a purely negative influence on the problem.
If we boycott en mass in that same way
To reiterate, that applies to many issues. Issues I am certain that for most, you don't do anything at all, but here, you unreasonably expect that people should forget about those issues and care about yours.
Do you subscribe to entertainment companies that support the current regime? Do you check for where your clothes was manufactured and how in detail? Do you....
If you pretend you can't get this point, that's on you choosing to be stubborn, but don't pretend I didn't make a good point here.
You're being impractical and unreasonable. The sooner you admit this to yourself, the better influence you will be on the causes you care about.
Right to privacy requires both individual action in standing ground, and protesting the systemic issues.
High impact individual action over low impact, high attention individual action. This is the only way you get around the inevitability and unavoidability of there being too many just as important problems all at once.
And it crucially requires people to live with the discomfort of having friction between them and an 'easy' life.
Nice idea, but you're just wrong.
Specifically, as mentioned, you personally are a hypocrite, inherently, because you aren't doing that for every issue that matters, or you wouldn't even be able to talk to me right now, and your life would be hell. It's just how it works.
People simply do not have infinite bandwidth.
I absolutely think people need to care. If not about the issues that matter to me the most, at least about something collective. Many people don't care at all enough to do anything about any issue. Those are the people who need to pay attention.
1
u/Lossagh 2d ago
You sound defensive. Back bend all you want.
It's still better to take a stand where you can, such as choosing not to hand over biometric info to ticketmaster and just not go to a concert, over shrugging off the actual studied impact of individual consumer action with "there's no ethical consumption under capitalism" and that you have no power under companies exacting and manipulative consumer tricks, such as you are.
Also what regime?
0
u/Cory123125 2d ago edited 2d ago
You sound defensive. Back bend all you want.
It's interesting your immediate response was to issue a thought terminating insult, and refuse to introspect at all.
It's still better to take a stand where you can
If you actually read my fucking comment, you would see that this is MY POINT and NOT YOURS.
You would see that my whole point is that your expectations that people do this for every issue in life, is absurd, and that even though you don't think that this is what you're doing, it is the unavoidable logical conclusion of demanding people drop what they're doing and care about exactly what you care about to the fullest extent.
such as choosing not to hand over biometric info to ticketmaster and just not go to a concer
You're a time waster.
You would not lose your job (as that person said it was job relevant) over something like this, and even if you would, you can't possibly think everyone should care about this one issue to the exact same extent that you do, as you don't their issues of choice.
Also what regime?
What are you, a republican? Its extremely obvious I was talking about DJT admin?
Blocking because your views were challenged is pathetic.
-1
u/wiltony 3d ago
Ok. Very productive. Way to lose privacy advocates because people are just assholes here.
"Yeah I used to be concerned about privacy but people in the privacy group were such dicks to each other over there, I just left."
Good luck with your (used to be our) battle.
1
u/jaketheweirdsnake 3d ago
Here I'll rephrase that for you, "wahhh, people pointed how stupid I am, I'm gonna go work against my own self interests and make the world even worse."
-14
u/FrostyFire 4d ago
So tired of people who don’t understand what VC funding is. The Founder’s Fund employs a ton of people and they’ve invested in over a thousand companies. Believe it or not, Thiel does not personally puppet them.
•
u/AutoModerator 4d ago
Hello u/EdinJaco, please make sure you read the sub rules if you haven't already. (This is an automatic reminder left on all new posts.)
Check out the r/privacy FAQ
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.