-
Okay I will actually try and walk through this one 🧵 Let's say you're a savvy, private person online. You use a screen name on social media but you have your birthday up because who doesn't like the Happy Birthday messages from the moots? @xtinacomputes/1569439338639011842Permalink On twitter.com
♻️ 3 Retweets ❤️ 16 Favorites Mood +1 🙂
-
How many people in your country do you think were born on your birth date? Probably a lot, right? That's not sensitive information. It's not like you're an idiot. You're not sharing everything. You're being responsible and only sharing what you're comfortable withPermalink On twitter.com
-
Okay, now, how many people do you think send tweets from your city? Again. Loads. Hundreds of thousands. You're still pretty safe and anonymous. How many people own cats? How many people are men? How many like Fire Emblem? Speak Spanish? Hundreds of thousandsPermalink On twitter.com
-
Now, how many people do you think are from your country, have your DoB, send tweets from your city, own a cat, are men, speak Spanish and like Fire Emblem? It's not a lot. In fact, if you are lucky, it's like three peoplePermalink On twitter.com
-
But it's not like all of this information is on one site. Again, you're not an idiot. But let's take at the big picturePermalink On twitter.com
-
You told Amazon you own a cat because you ordered a fresh bag of cat litter. You told YouTube you like Fire Emblem because you watched the latest trailer. Twitter's AI guessed you are a man by the way you quote tweet. Google Maps has your location and Instagram had your birthdayPermalink On twitter.com
-
All of these companies make money by selling your information to companies called data brokers (Google is one, but there are dozens you haven't heard of). Because you clicked "I agree". These companies trade pieces of you like Pokemon cards until they reconstruct your profilePermalink On twitter.com
-
Now imagine you piss off the wrong side of the internet. Maybe a new troll site called kiwi pastures dot net. They fucking hate you for no reason and they have money to spend. They pay a data broker and now have your address, interests, age, phone number, current location, etcPermalink On twitter.com
-
Or let's say you have pissed off the State. Normally it would take them months, thousands of dollars, and multiple search warrants to know everything they want to about you. And you could fight them in court at every step. But now they just ask a data broker and boom, donePermalink On twitter.com
-
Or, let's say you menstruate, and you've been using a free application to keep track of your cycles. The app has been collecting and selling your info and location so you get better tampon ads. Until the state makes abortion illegal, and asks when your last period wasPermalink On twitter.com
-
Or you're a Muslim, and you put your name and location into a prayer app to get personal reminders on when to pray Fajr. That information is sold to a data broker, and the FBI now knows the location of every devout Muslim in the country without every having needed a warrantPermalink On twitter.com
-
The problem here is not the ads. Sometimes the ads are kinda neat, actually. The problem is that you don't choose where this starts and stops. You said yes to the ads once in 2011 and gave up all right to track which hands have touched it will touch your informationOn twitter.com