I still remember conversations here on HN, around the time Facebook was launched. It was considered insanity that you would give up your privacy to a firm.

I remember how that what seemed absurdly risky, meant absolutely nothing to the average person, and the astronomic value Facebook began to accumulate.

I wonder if it wasn't social media that set up the death spiral of the internet. The walled gardens on content and then the ad revenue created incentives to increase engagement, while capturing the value which would have gone to the open internet.

In that light, it seems AI firms are going to complete what Social Media started. Sequestering the remaining value of information and content, and then earning rents on it.

>privacy does not matter when there are rampant black operations being conducted which violates human dignity in every sense of the term.

You have this completely backwards. The threat and existence of such operations is one of the fundamental reasons privacy does matter so much. Privacy is to be protected heavily not just for the now but for what could happen in the future, and it's self-reinforcing. A more privacy preserving society is a harder one to oppress.

Closely related, I think. Without privacy even demonstrating, a democratic right, becomes risky.

>Fahrenheit 451

We are quite far away from that. On the contrary knowledge is preserved better than ever.

Anna's Archive estimates they have preserved 16% of the world's books, all available to download with an internet connection.

https://annas-archive.gl/faq

On the other hand, I can see the side of Fahrenheit 451 where the people don't value books which is what allowed the book burning in the first place.

That works better in a less-connected, more local-bubble-centric world. Back then unless you were expressing something really inflammatory or contrary to a narrow slice of government-opposed ideology (e.g. red scare in the US), you could be spread your opinion mostly freely without too much fear of blowback.

In the modern world, we have governments (and politically aligned lackey-citizens) increasingly actively hunting down anything vaguely dissent-shaped and making those who spoke it suffer in some form, whether than be mass harassment and jawboning or outright muzzling or prosecution.

There’s a chilling effect with growing intensity that pressures people to either obediently nod along or shut up, which makes anonymity (even if only the plausibly deniable sort) important.

Do you ever wonder why we vote anonymously?

I'm not sure I agree, people say unhinged things on TikTok/Facebook using accounts that have their full government name and/or showing face. I doubt deanonymisation would help.

To me "people will be on their best behaviour if they can't be anonymous" sounds eerily similar to Larry Ellison's "people will be on their best behaviour if they're constantly surveilled".

Your world sure makes impersonation based cyber crime a lot simpler.

>everyone stood by everything they said online with their real identity

And get Charlie Kirk'ed? No thanks. There are a lot of deranged and demented people out there, and publishing on the internet is rolling that dice billions of times, compared to shouting in the town square.

> If every potential mate and employer was able to review everything you've ever posted online, we'd all be much more careful with what we say, much better able to screen out bad actors, and the wold would be a better place for it.

This is stalking and is illegal. Are there any other crimes you want to claim as righteous?

Presuming you want stalking to be repealed and permissible, you have quite a few bars to pass through.

And in that society, are you willing to have me as your enemy who is very willing to push society to its utter limits? I know I'd be good at it, and I know thousands if not millions of people who share this interest. Because, as you say, its any potential mate/employer.

>Lets say the primary force we need to prevent is russian influence campaigns that back and push far right nationalists who will destabilize democracy. Is that a sufficient reason for controls?

No. Because if you solve underlying tensions in society the so called russian propaganda has nothing to take hold on.

Also who and under what rules will decide which propaganda is allowed? is American propaganda fine? Chinese? Japanese? UAE?

Not only this creates dissident, and suppresses voices critical of current government. but also gives extraordinary power on level of soviet union to current government.

You might trust current EU to not abuse it, but it might take a single elections, or single term for un-elected(!) officials in EC for attidute to change.

Just like in US - a lot of powers were granted but suddenly there's a person willing to abuse them.

For that to be even considered in EU we would need a lot more check and balances - especially for European Comission and Council.

Another issue is - is EU a trade union or federation? if former - this is outside of EU's responsiblities and powers. if later - look at point above.

If you really wanted to solve this problem you would go after advertisers and data collection companies, and regulate them.

The answer to lies is generally sunshine, not censorship. There are just too many examples of censorship eventually being misused by those in power. The power to censor Russia right now might appear appealing to those in charge, but they need to remember, pro-Russian factions may be voted into power in the future, and they will use this power to suppress information they don't like. Once the precedent is created, it's too late to cry about censorship when it's your "side" which gets censored. No one will care.

To point: I don't accept the premise that the governments gets to decide which information I should be allowed to consume.

Is it a sufficient reason to build a cage for yourself that only needs a single regime flip to turn against you? Is it a sufficient reason to become what you're trying to avoid? Is destabilizing democracy necessary to stop the democracy from being destabilized? No, no, and no.

>russian influence campaigns

Just FYI, your rhetoric precisely mirrors Russian internal rhetoric used to boil the frog 10-15 years ago. If this doesn't make you pause and think, nothing will. In Russia people who fall for it are called "unteachable". Which makes sense, you don't seem to learn anything from their mistakes even though you have a live example of your future that you will reach with 99% certainty, without any help from your boogeymen, because your politicians mirror each step.

>who will destabilize democracy

Let's just ban those politicians, ban and censor "bad" media and platforms, and surveil all citizens to protect us from those pesky authoritarians!

Is eroding privacy the only way to combat that?

> Is that a sufficient reason for controls?

no.

Rubbish. Fighting fascism by implementing totalitarian tools is a ludicrous idea.

Start with dismantling the means by which the information cancer spreads. No more targeted ads, no more data harvesting. Increase privacy.

Everybody knows about the influence of Russian bots on the net and yet precisely fuck all is being done about it.

You know EU has mostly gone after and unpersoned leftoids (and accusing them of working for russia), despite the rightoid wringing of hands?

Look up e. g. Hüseyin Doğru.

Why would Russia be responsible for what corrupt EU officials do?

There is a high chance that corrupt money spreads, which explains 100% of why such laws get in, but I fail to see why Russia should the only or primary actor be here. There is no real benefit for Russia here, but there is a LOT of benefit for those who want to reduce privacy and force transparency onto everyone at all times. Several US companies come to mind and there is cross-state kick back going on here even aside from the USA too.

to argue that the success of the far right nationalists is solely off the back of Russian disinformation campaigns ignores the material reality experienced by far right party voters