Is it impossible to be private online?

every time I post a video about online privacy I always hear from these types of people what's the point in trying to protect your privacy Google already knows everything about you they've already collected so much information about you already just give up it's impossible to have any privacy unless you go completely off- grid and live in the woods so why bother if you've seen some comments like this you might be wondering are they right is there really a point in caring about online privacy or is it just inevitable that you'll be tracked no matter what you do should we just give up and because there's nothing we can do about it anyway there's a big movement that says that caring about online privacy doesn't matter I call them the Privacy doomers you know doomers the Eternal pessimists that think that giving up is the rational perspective but let's take their arguments seriously because I actually understand where they're coming from in 2013 Edward Snowden leaked documents that revealed that government Mass surveillance was worse than anyone could have imagined he came out with documents showing how the US government was monitoring vast amounts of Americans h online activity the government was in bed with just about every big tech company and they could read through your search history your email your Facebook messages your text messages and just about anything that you did digitally Americans International Communications could be monitored without a warrant they cooperated and shared data with other governments who were also doing the same thing governments around the world were collecting as much data as possible about everyone no matter if you were innocent or guilty and sure it was massive news but the worst part was was what happened next not much most people just didn't care Google and Facebook and the rest of big tech only kept growing people continued to use these products knowing full well that they were being surveilled at all times why well because it was too convenient you can't expect someone to not use Facebook right and so the narrative went from the government would never care about tracking little old me to well they track everything I do but it's not like I'm doing anything wrong people just accepted that they had no privacy and moved on with their lives and when you realize that the vast majority of people are just too naive to care it can make fighting for online privacy feel like an impossible task the war is over we've already lost time to go home because how do you beat a revoltion like the government is spying on everyone at all times if that doesn't wake people up nothing will because things have only gotten worse since then it's now extremely common knowledge that big Tech knows everything about you and that you pay for all the free sites out there with your data but again nobody cares everybody still keeps using them companies make it explicit that your privacy is for sale now there's even products like this TV that you can get for free you just pay by giving away all your personal data to them and 500,000 people immediately signed up to get one so normal people still don't care about privacy even after everything has happened it's over wow even I'm starting to get a little bit pessimistic so I understand where these people are coming from if you only look at how bad things have gotten things can look pretty grim but that's not the full story let's listen to the Privacy Doomer arguments about why there's no point in caring and see if they're right or not the most common counterargument I hear is that caring about privacy is worthless because you'll never have total privacy maybe you care about privacy and you use a privacy respecting search engine and email provider but yet here you are on YouTube being tracked by Google that makes all your efforts a waste right or some people will go crazy because they can't give up something like what's that because their friends won't all switch to signal so they should just give up right but I think the issue is that a lot of people see privacy as a black or white thing but it's not an All or Nothing thing if you want to Disappear Completely you have to go completely Off the Grid live in a cabin in the middle of nowhere and become a ghost in the eyes of big Tech and the government but that's not my goal I'm not trying to Disappear Completely my goal is just to minimize the personal data I share and you actually don't even need to put in much work to improve your privacy by aign there's a lot of low hanging fruit that a lot of people don't pick switch to a privacy respecting browser like braver Firefox install you block origin to block trackers and use a privacy respecting search engine like Brave Duck Duck Go or start page that already improves your privacy by a lot you should just find the level of privacy you need or want and get on with the rest of your life because you have to find the level of privacy that works for you some people call this a threat level but like I've talked about before privacy is aect and you don't need to be on the extremes people think you either have no privacy or you need Snowden level privacy but they're wrong there's a whole range in between if you no longer give companies your browsing history allow them to track you around websites with cookies and give them access to all of your search results you've already made a lot of progress that's a lot of data points that they're no longer collecting about you and in determining the level of privacy you need you have to make sacrifices for the sake of convenience for example I still use WhatsApp to contact some people in my life because I can't convince everyone to use signal so I don't have perfect privacy not that it exists anyway but I do the most I can to minimize the data that big Tech can use against me like I've said before don't make perfect the enemy of the good just because you can't go completely off the grid doesn't mean you shouldn't take steps to improve your privacy now I could go Ultra paranoid and only use an ancient libbre booted ThinkPad cut off any friend that doesn't use signal pay every transaction in my life with cash and nuke my YouTube account but it's just not worth it for me I accept that some data is being collected about me so the doomers are right in a way that data is being collected about you and it's virtually impossible to opt out completely but I choose to minimize the data that they can collect rather than just throwing my hands up and giving up people will also say that they've already collected so much data about me so what's the point and they're right if you've ever used the internet before Big Data probably has collected a lot of info about you but that's all the more reason not to give them any more data the argument just doesn't make any sense to me it's like you have a house without any locks in it and someone breaks in and takes all of your valuables would you say oh they've already taken so much it's too late to start caring about security now or would you replace the door and install locks in a security system sure you've already given out a lot of data you can't undo the damage but you can prevent future damage and if you think that they've already gathered too much information about you if they had big Tech wouldn't be spending billions of dollarss to further collect even more data about you it's not enough for them that they just collect information about your past they want to be able to predict your future by cutting off your data you're taking that away from them a lot of people also don't realize that caring about online privacy has gone mainstream there's more people that care than ever before and as a result easily accessible privacy tools have also gone mainstream a few months ago I saw a duck duck goo ad on TV and they were advertising how their search engine was the private alternative to Google and regardless of how you feel about Duck Duck Go the fact is they're much better regarding privacy than something like Google and it really made me realize just how mainstream the discussion of privacy has become I don't think 10 years ago you could run an ad like that and have people care but these days people are aware of the issues with big Tech and are more likely to choose the private option I was talking to my brother a while back who was just a normal person not a weird privacy Advocate like me and I learned that he uses the brave browser I did didn't have to preach to him about why he should use a more private browser he was just using it because it was the superior choice and as people become more aware about how privacy is important there are now more options than ever 5 or 10 years ago if you wanted to put analytics on your website I would have only thought to use Google analytics but now if you want a more privacy respecting option I can name five different analytics services off the top of my head that respect your privacy so caring about privacy is important because it brings awareness to the issue the more more people that are aware about it the more private Alternatives people will create and use the more other companies will learn that privacy is something that people care about now and as a result now even giant corporations like apple are making it a key marketing point that their devices are more private and for all my criticism about Apple they have made some good privacy features available to normal people if you want secure private messaging you no longer have to be a computer nerd and learn about cryptography so you can endend encrypt your messages now endend encryption is the standard all over the place you can use something like proton mail or signal and send end to-end encrypted messages in no time and if everybody did just give up and nobody cared about online privacy these tools wouldn't exist and privacy would be inaccessible to normal people so it's good that people did care in the past and the more people do care the more privacy tools and options there will be and maybe you can start or contribute to the next gr privacy tool and I know some people might complain that these services are not perfect and sure critique them all you want as I have done as well but they're still much better than the Privacy invasive options out there and again you're making perfect the enemy of the good not only that but by caring about privacy you have an influence on other people even if you don't think you have any influence you can still make a difference by choosing something as simple as not having a Facebook I've had to explain it to family and friends as to why I don't have one and have made others aware of why I think privacy is important just an action as simple as not having an invasive social media account is a stance that other people take notice of and you might start to influence their decisions now if you've watched any of my videos you know I can be pessimistic about big Tech sometimes I'm not saying just be a blind Optimist and stick your head in the sand and say everything is going to be fine but the difference is I actually do something about it I think there are good Solutions we can Implement to mitigate a lot of the surveillance and I don't think the solution is to just lay down and die if everyone thought like privacy doomers none of this would even be a discussion but it's because people care that the discussion about online privacy has gone from Fringe to mainstream a lot of pessimists see themselves as smarter than everyone else because they see the world for how it really is but they're really just making the world a worse place by giving up and that's what a lot of pessimism really is when you dig down deep Just A coping mechanism for covering up the fact that you're too lazy to take action all you have to do is take action instead of doing nothing because just doing something as simple as using a privacy respecting browser or explaining to people why you have a to toota email address makes a difference the world needs more people who just care don't be a Doomer

Every time I talk about privacy online, the pessimists always come out. "It's impossible to have any online privacy." "They've already collected so much data about you. Why bother?" Is it really well and truly over? Or are there actually good reasons to still care about online privacy in the age of surveillance capitalism? 🌐 My website: https://ericmurphy.xyz 💸 Support the Channel: https://ericmurphy.xyz/donate 🎥 Watch my videos on Odysee: https://odysee.com/@ericnmurphy 0:00 Intro 0:48 It's over 3:08 "You'll never have total privacy online." 5:49 "They've already collected so much data about you." 6:41 Privacy goes mainstream 9:08 Under the influence 9:32 Why pessimism fails