Yes, you can share that bikini pic and still care about your privacy
“Privacy is dead and its too late.”
This phrase was said to me by a peer after a presentation I held about dark patterns in UX design. From the discussion following the presentation, it was clear to me that the issue was not that people did not care about shady dark patterns online — it is that they actually believe they cannot do anything anymore. It is the assumption that we have waived our rights to complain because we shared that one picture already.
People are outraged but do not act because they feel like hypocrites
But, being concerned about digital privacy does not mean you must live under a rock. You are allowed to make use of social media or other new developments on the web. In fact, technology is great — we just have to make sure that it serves us instead of enslaving us for profit.
I do not believe that you waive your right to be concerned about tracking just because you post about yourself voluntarily. Most people around me would tell you that I am not a private person at all — truth be told, I am terrible at keeping anything personal to myself. I mean, we all have social media accounts that our parents disapprove of and questionable pictures in the depth of our Facebook profiles. But I strongly believe that a small concept called purpose makes the difference.
Why purpose matters more than consent
If I share something online, I do it for a purpose — for example connecting with friends. I expect the platform to respect this purpose. This is where data abuse comes in. Most legislation manifests this in its framework. The GDPR, for example, is big on purpose:
“The processing of personal data for purposes other than those for which the personal data were initially collected should be allowed only where the processing is compatible with the purposes for which the personal data were initially collected”
In fact, it is my right to share my gender with my network, yet I do not want to be shown certain products because I am female. I can show my interest in surfing by following the right accounts, but this does not equal consenting to targeted ads on expensive surfboards. One step further, I might even agree to receive targeted ads on one specific platform, but I do not want my interests sold to other platforms. It is that simple. And if you do want your experience “optimized” (interesting terminology often used by platforms) in this way, that is also completely fine. The bottom line is that you have a choice.
This choice, I argue, is taken away by a swamp and blend of purposes. We are confronted with one banner, one click, one choice that is supposed to signal all-encompassing consent.
“Yes, I want to use this platform” has become equivalent to “Yes, do as you please with my data, as long as I can use this platform.”
Don’t get me wrong. Consent is great, and platforms must ask us before processing data. But it becomes meaningless if we cannot differentiate between the purposes for which we are consenting. I think people have given up on digital privacy because it is presented as a package deal that comes with the services they want to use. Platforms offer the choice between ‘live under your rock in isolation and keep your data’ or ‘join this fun social network and give us all your data’. Why this dichotomy? Why are we not reclaiming our social spaces and our data? After all, we are the users who keep the web alive.
How to reclaim the web?
Decentralization can be one way of getting there. The rise of services like Mastodon (after the internet was outraged that Twitter changed owners from one for-profit organization to another for profit-person, namely Elon Musk) has shown that there is a demand for platforms that serve and respect us. Disagreeing with the way a system works does not mean we lose our right to use it. It means platforms should find new ways to satisfy users’ demand — or else competitors will do it. And we finally begin to demand respect for digital rights and meaningful consent.
Extra: The presentation that prompted the phrase “privacy is dead and it’s too late” was based on my latest article on dark patterns in cookie pop-ups:
For more resources on deceptive practices in UX design I recommend Luiza Jarovsky’s article:
