(Part 1 of this post.)
So much for the present. But what about the future? You have nothing significant to hide today, but what you accept that others can access today, may not be anything you want to share with the world in the future, like 10 or 50 years from now.
The standards of the world occasionally change radically.
Before the beginning of this millennium, same sex marriages were an absurdity to most people, even in the Western world. Today, it is widely considered an intolerant extremist opinion to be against them.
People who had been proud of their idealistic communist convictions in Germany in the 1920s thought that they had nothing to hide. However, with the nazi takeover, tens of thousands of communists were killed. If communists had used Facebook before the nazi took over, the number of victims would undoubtedly have been higher.
Less harsh but still annoying were the consequences for people who had feared communism in the 1930s and who joined the nazi party as the safest bulwark against the communists. Those people may have left the nazi ideology early on, as soon as they realised what it was all about. So did for example the author Gottfried Benn. Nevertheless, after the war, things changed radically, and the liberators banned his work, because he had initially supported the nazi. That he had chosen to leave the movement did not matter. Other people were in similar situations. That kind of ban may or may not have been morally right, but it was certainly nothing those people had seen coming.
In the U.S., alcohol consumption was banned during the Prohibition 1920-1933. If the American police had had access to private Facebook posts and party pictures before 1920, how easy would it not have been to identify suspects to investigate for illegal use of alcohol.
Sometimes opinions become really suspicious through no fault of our own. When people start using violence or even killing in the name of opinions you share, you risk becoming a suspect as well. There are people who have used violence in the name of Christianity, animal rights, Islam, abortion bans, women's rights, and so on. You may have any opinions you want. However, if you feel really strongly about your opinions, there are bound to be some nutters who feel even more strongly about them, and who are willing to use violence to promote them.
For every such nutter, you become slightly more suspect as a sympathiser in the eyes of anyone who knows that you hold or once held such opinions.
We should of course use our freedom of speech to promote our opinions. However, when we consciously do so in public, we can choose the way we pronounce them, to avoid any unfortunate misinterpretation. When we write a private mail, we should not have to spend time on making sure the message is perfectly clear to any secret reader.
Let's say you write the following in a private mail: “I would really do anything to get rid of that politician.” The authorities may take that as a serious threat, if they or one of their text algorithms find it. However, when your sister reads it, she will realise that you just mean the following.
“I would really do anything to get rid of that politician - within the law of course. When I say ‘anything’, I mean things like going to the voting booth and perhaps even participate in a public manifestation, if someone invites me. And if there are cookies.”
What you do online can be used against you. What you consider innocent today may not be considered innocent by others in the future. The vast number of people in the world are nice almost all the time, and the risk that something really bad happens may be low, but we do not know. We really don't know yet.
So much for the present. But what about the future? You have nothing significant to hide today, but what you accept that others can access today, may not be anything you want to share with the world in the future, like 10 or 50 years from now.
The standards of the world occasionally change radically.
Before the beginning of this millennium, same sex marriages were an absurdity to most people, even in the Western world. Today, it is widely considered an intolerant extremist opinion to be against them.
People who had been proud of their idealistic communist convictions in Germany in the 1920s thought that they had nothing to hide. However, with the nazi takeover, tens of thousands of communists were killed. If communists had used Facebook before the nazi took over, the number of victims would undoubtedly have been higher.
Less harsh but still annoying were the consequences for people who had feared communism in the 1930s and who joined the nazi party as the safest bulwark against the communists. Those people may have left the nazi ideology early on, as soon as they realised what it was all about. So did for example the author Gottfried Benn. Nevertheless, after the war, things changed radically, and the liberators banned his work, because he had initially supported the nazi. That he had chosen to leave the movement did not matter. Other people were in similar situations. That kind of ban may or may not have been morally right, but it was certainly nothing those people had seen coming.
In the U.S., alcohol consumption was banned during the Prohibition 1920-1933. If the American police had had access to private Facebook posts and party pictures before 1920, how easy would it not have been to identify suspects to investigate for illegal use of alcohol.
Sometimes opinions become really suspicious through no fault of our own. When people start using violence or even killing in the name of opinions you share, you risk becoming a suspect as well. There are people who have used violence in the name of Christianity, animal rights, Islam, abortion bans, women's rights, and so on. You may have any opinions you want. However, if you feel really strongly about your opinions, there are bound to be some nutters who feel even more strongly about them, and who are willing to use violence to promote them.
For every such nutter, you become slightly more suspect as a sympathiser in the eyes of anyone who knows that you hold or once held such opinions.
We should of course use our freedom of speech to promote our opinions. However, when we consciously do so in public, we can choose the way we pronounce them, to avoid any unfortunate misinterpretation. When we write a private mail, we should not have to spend time on making sure the message is perfectly clear to any secret reader.
Let's say you write the following in a private mail: “I would really do anything to get rid of that politician.” The authorities may take that as a serious threat, if they or one of their text algorithms find it. However, when your sister reads it, she will realise that you just mean the following.
“I would really do anything to get rid of that politician - within the law of course. When I say ‘anything’, I mean things like going to the voting booth and perhaps even participate in a public manifestation, if someone invites me. And if there are cookies.”
What you do online can be used against you. What you consider innocent today may not be considered innocent by others in the future. The vast number of people in the world are nice almost all the time, and the risk that something really bad happens may be low, but we do not know. We really don't know yet.
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