Argument against "I have nothing to hide"

2026-03-05 19:33 UTC

I’ve seen this being discussed around here in the past but it wasn’t on a day I could engage, and today I was talking to friend of mine who is developing an alternative to chattable and he was going to link fonts from Google, so I told him to use Bunny Fonts instead because it wouldn’t be using the call to log IPs and track activity, he just had to change the domain name because the path was the same, and he joked about me being paranoid… I edited a bit of my message to put on a post on my microblog pxhc.neocities.org *“… hey man, there are people who worry about Google tracking them, maybe they don’t need to worry today, but the government of tomorrow might give them a reason to, since all those companies are already so proactively handing people’s data to ICE and shit, and with modern tools it won’t be hard to translate ad targeting data into footsteps… there are a lot of people saying the AI bubble will burst because there is no demand for all the crap they’re inserting AI into, but I think it’s stupid to think that we’re the ones supposed to consume AI, the real consumers are the big companies, it’s their demand, not ours, we’re just the commodity… anyway, what should bother everyone immediately, even if they don’t mind being tracked and profiled, is dynamic pricing, something that will become all the more common when all those fucking datacenters are operational. They will be selling that service, they already do that for transportation and accommodation just by knowing where you visited and what you looked at, and with those billions they are investing in infrastructure they will track you through their absurd amount of data and just tell the store how much more they can charge you because the AI read your digital footprint and discovered you just got a raise, that you’re in high spirits, or that you’re in dire need of that item, so they can use it to surge prices everywhere you’re identifiable… … maybe it won’t make a practical difference, but every tiny bit of data you don’t hand them is good, and those practices can raise awareness for more widespread usage, in every front, to a point where it can make a practical difference, and we can have a web they can’t simply connect your IP that was fingerprinted elsewhere and link your identity through timestamps. Let their confidence in their information fall.”* It was just an argument about using a Google alternative for fonts, but I believe the argument can be used for the “I have nothing to hide” crowd as well, because they believe it’s an issue for “criminals” and “political extremists” only… but it’s also their pockets. And yeah, I also believe that changing the font will have no impact in tracking and shit, but as rule of thumb if you don’t need to give them evil motherfuckers data, then don’t give them evil motherfuckers data.

Replies (12)

@ToTheGraveMyLove@sh.itjust.works 2026-03-05 19:57

If you don’t have anything to hide, then you’re cool with me installing video cameras in your bathroom and bedroom.

Open ##541868
@ceenote@lemmy.world 2026-03-05 19:59

I have nothing I’m trying to hide, but whether I trust the motives of people trying to invade my privacy is a different matter entirely.

Open ##541878
@hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 2026-03-05 20:05

I think the browser extension “LocalCDN” helps a bit with all the tracking done by webfonts and javascript libraries. It’s supposed to cache them and avoid unnecessary requests.

Open ##541918
@nonentity@sh.itjust.works 2026-03-05 20:10

If they’re not doing anything wrong, they don’t need to surveil you.

Open ##541969
@infuziSporg@hexbear.net 2026-03-05 20:38

The reason why they engage in this level of data collection is to be able to market it. The purpose of marketing it is to squeeze more money out of you, either from individualized pricing, or by convincing you to buy things you don’t need. The average person is absolutely losing out, with everything they do. It’s a zero sum game; when they are harvesting your data they are harvesting you. Their financial gain is your financial loss, and the planet’s material loss as well. I think this is a much better argument than “we can all put our small efforts together to make these large entities a little less menacing”.

Open ##542201
@MissesAutumnRains@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2026-03-05 20:56

If you don’t have anything to hide at this point, I don’t trust you. They check your phone at the border. They crawl your social media and build a profile on you. And if they don’t like what you’ve said, you’re flagged as a dissident and law enforcement will treat you differently for your assessed political views. It takes next to nothing to be in the sights of the current US admin. It isn’t paranoia to be aware of this, it’s self-preservation and common sense. It isn’t a conspiracy, it’s fucking Palantir. And now we’re seeing how complicit Silicon Valley is and how willing they are to feed their data into this demonstrably hostile administration. At one point, I could feasibly understand why someone would make the “I have nothing to hide” argument. Now? You have to be completely ignorant or with them to say that shit.

Open ##542383
@RumorsOfLove@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-03-05 20:56

Nothing to hide from a just government? Or from an untethered murder machine?

Open ##542384
@real_squids@sopuli.xyz 2026-03-05 22:30

“Ultimately, arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.”

Open ##543335
@French75@slrpnk.net 2026-03-05 22:38

Its a disingenuous argument based on the implication that the stuff you want to hide is criminal or immoral. The reality is that everybody has stuff to hide. Anyone that makes this statement… ask them for their bank login and password.

Open ##543406
@yyprum@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2026-03-06 16:21

For me, the key aspect is the difference between hiding something and just wanting privacy. When I go take a shit, I close the door, not because I’m hiding something horrible, I just prefer to have privacy even though everyone knows and can guess what I’m doing and what I have under my pants. We need to start making the distinction between privacy and hiding something, they are not the same thing.

Open ##555169
@captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 2026-03-06 16:48

someone said they have nothing to hide, respond by stating to take of their pants.

Open ##555468
@kittykillinit@lemy.lol 2026-03-07 01:19

It’s rhetoric for sheep. They’re implicitly saying they’re okay with how things are and always will be and even if they weren’t okay with it, they wouldn’t do anything about it. Complete morons. It’s a shame there’s so many of them.

Open ##562454