Being Open and Honest in an Age where Privacy is a Problem To Be Solved

TL:DR; There is no summary. If you want to know and understand what a person has said online. Read it. But I will tell you this is a stream-of-thought diary entry, more or less. 1/13/25

In reflection of recent events, I have began to wonder: "What value does my data really have?". 

To capitalist companies, it is all reduced down to touch-points of things I believe, enjoy, and dislike - surface level things anyone can glean from looking at my account directly, and browsing around for an hour or so. My liked and favorites lists, downvotes, groups I belong to, etc.

But my whole person does not fit into that one hour. It can't be fit into the videos i've laughed at, the speaches I've listened to, the people i've spoken to, and the books i've read.

I can only fit into me, and my lived experience. It takes a whole lifetime to understand me; My lifetime, to be precise. "I learn more about myself every day," really means i'm changing all the time - and, even to myself, it takes the effort of learning to understand what i've changed into, what i've changed from, and why. Finite as my lifespan is, and as small as I change each day, it's a hell of a lot more data than all of the videos i've favorited on my TikTok account.

To understand me fully would be impossible, even to a super-computer with everything I've ever commented, posted, or liked; It can know about me, but not know me as I am. However I feel like there is a closeness to that reality, looming only slightly ahead - or something similar to that in nature. I can feel the presence of a giant computer system, knowing all of us better than we know each other, inside of our phones. Beating us, in a way, to a community full of connections we couldn't make ourselves. Maybe it is already in front of us, in our own hands as we type and scroll, and we cannot see it yet.

Our data is being harvested within microsecond of interacting with anything online, and spreadsheet-summaries of us exist in the hands of thousands of corporate entities. Our unanimous reaction is to the tone of 'generally upset and annoyed', but isn't wanting to be understood one of mankind's most base desires? We need, at a physical and psychological level, to know that outside of ourselves something can see the way we see.

But we dislike it when that information is stolen from us, instead of shared willingly - scanned and filed away instead of communicated and understood. An algorithm or program can write an essay about us, detailing our whole lifes' history and all the things we've come to believe over the years, but it cannot see us within the pages. It can only pass it into the hands of a figure wearing a suit who sees only profit margins and shareholder interests.

What is missing from this overarching system is a humana biproduct that no machine or businessperson can produce; when you are understood by a flesh-and-blood person a bond is made. Something that connects people in a natural, unmechanical, unmonetized way. Understanding is akin to allyship. To friendship. To love. Machines and businesses can't love us, no matter how much they know about us.

But even that hasn't stopped the attempt to mimic it.

Our stolen data can manifest as an AI, custom made for us alone, that we talk to on an App at any time we want to; Even 2 in the morning, when we are crying and frustrated, when anyone else would be asleep. Intimacy is trying to be served to us at our convenience. But those apps never last in the hands of someone who needs genuine care. And if they do last, they outlast their users.

"What can we do in a world where computers know me, and people don't?" 

I've found our answer: I wish for people to know me! I can make that happen in my own life by talking with my friends. I can tell them what i'm thinking, what I made for dinner yesterday and how i'd like to make it for them too, take them to the new coffee shop I found and discuss the news.

I am lucky to have these opportunities. A lot of people don't. We are in an era of isolation, a "Loneliness Epidemic" where it is demonstrable that social media algorithms know more about one of its users than real people do, on average.

In reaction to being known but terribly, depressingly alone, i've noticed people commonly do one, or both, of two things; Replace 'having friends' with 'having moots' (mutuals, online friends) which is a shallower version of having real friends, or sinking deeply into an echochamber of despair somewhere online where other people are sulking.

"Is there any other path we can take?"

I think so. In summary, I believe your 'data', or who you are, is more valuable to other people than to a company. There is no privacy in being understood, and the root of the issue is that we can shield ourselves from people but not corporations. Our privacy has already been lost to us, so instead of the above two ways of acting, we can choose to be open, honest, and view privacy as a thing non-existant - realize that we haven't had privacy in over 20 years, and we may as well share ourselves to create community.

We can fundamentally change the internet and how it's used by:

- Going outside. Participate in life in a way you haven't done before, or recently. It's risky and uncomfortable, but only because you've been conditioned by companies to prefer the convenience, ease, and detatched nature of social media. If you want to be known by a real person, you will have to put in the footwork, take the risk of sharing yourself with them, and knowingly be unprepared for however they react. But someone will understand - we are all more similar than we are different - and you will gain something that cannot be gotten anywhere online. Sometimes they do not understand, and they do not want to hear from you anymore. But even then, that is better than being told "I love you" from an AI application. Go to the library, a game store, a gymnasium basketball court, anywhere that people go to do something with other people. In this, the internet becomes a secondary thing to you, not as important. A tool that you have control over, instead of some company. You decide how you use it, and when.

- Sharing the parts of yourself that are not stored in your data expressively and with passion. We don't really have internet privacy - we haven't had it since the patriot act (conveniently right before the internet became a place everyone frequented). But maybe by leaving privacy behind, we can overwhelm the internet and make it more human. The goverment and capitalists already have everything they want from you, they even get more of it every day, and are using it to keep you full to bursting of content you enjoy, but also keep you seperated from others. However they cannot take what is freely given. If you are open and honest, maybe someone will take the time to read what a stranger wrote somewhere online, and send you a message. Who know's what they'll say? But you can hope it will be something like, "I actually live nearby and have the same hobby as you! Would you like to join me and my friends the next time we play?" If our data cannot be ours, reclaiming it for ourselves must be the only recourse if we are to stay online. Make the internet about meeting new and different people again. Make it about community and learning about others, not about controversy or whatever disctractions they fill our feeds with. Make long, cringey posts online about the things you like. Talk about things the ruling class doesn't want you to. Message people who share the same interests and use lots of your favorite emojis. Form community through outreach and understanding, and use all of the 'touch-points' that make who you are a tool that connects you to others, instead of a channel for targetted adds.

"Once we are understood, we are free." It takes more than one person to be happy. Go share yourself with the world, and be rewarded. Go be in it, and change it for the better. We're all counting on ourselves now.

P.S. Since privacy has never really been in play, what deeper issues are revealed from that? Maybe that will be my next little diary entry. Comment if you want to discuss it!