Privacy & Censorship; A double-edge sword
The rapid advancement of technology has yielded the greatest bittersweet truth of our time. On one hand, technology has advanced to a point where human suffering has come close to extinction. On the other hand, it has given way to a chiefly 21st Century technological conundrum — the issue of privacy and censorship. A double-edge sword.
Take a look at China — there will be 1 billion cameras surveilling Chinese citizens by 2020. To put that into context, if this policy would be implemented in America, there would be roughly 3 cameras watching every single person. Imagine three people watching you at all times, every move, every breath, every blink. Still, people aren’t convinced of the implications of this kind of surveillance. A common argument for surveillance culture is that “if you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about” — essentially saying that security is more important than liberty. An easy argument to lay back on — Benjamin Franklin rebuts aptly, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” He is absolutely right — and if you feel the statement is perhaps too aggressive — think about it like this. Imagine living under an oppressive authoritarian regime, think North Korea or 1984’s Oceania. Would you choose to live there if they could guarantee your safety? I doubt it.
On a collective level, we unfortunately only think of these issues when they become impossible to ignore. Almost every single country participates in some form of surveillance of its citizens, and if it doesn’t it almost certainly has legislation that facilitates large corporations to buy and sell your information. Everything you purchase, do, and communicate is being surveilled. Take the example of China again — a good indicator of what our world will be in the future as it has the largest economy, population and GDP growth. Applications like WeChat and Weibo hint at the calamitous future our children will live in.
WeChat, the app known for ‘always watching you’ is a super app used by over 900 million users monthly. Need to message, video call or share files with your significant other? WeChat! Want to order food, book a plane ticket, rent a bike or buy groceries? WeChat! Forgot your wallet in your car and need to present a state-issued ID? WeChat! Have to book an appointment at the hospital? Guess what? WeChat! As convenient and easy to use WeChat may be, they have unimaginable data of every aspect of your life. Your personal information, who you talk to, spending habits, places you visit, and shopping preferences are all as of September 2017 stored and preserved by WeChat and WeChat will disclose any user information to the Chinese authorities as required. What’s the result? Complete censorship of anything that may threaten the Communist Party. Citizen Labs’ report found that politically sensitive material (among others) does not get sent on WeChat at all. Here’s an image, look for yourself.
Zhuo Baowei, a former Chinese lawyer who criticized a ‘state hero’ on the Social Media platform, Weibo, was detained for 10 days and fined for his public criticism.
Medium, a publishing platform that ranks #15 for Internet and Telecom/Social Network suspended Brenna Sparks’ (an adult Film Star) account when Brenna was writing an article on discrimination. Medium went as far as suspending her account before she even published the article. Here is the Tweet. *I realize this article is published on medium but I will be actively looking for a better open-source publishing platform. If you know of any, please let me know.*
Very recently, Dave Rubin, a libertarian political commentator and creator and host of The Rubin Report had to provide his subscribers with an alternative payment method among which he also provided a Bitcoin address to his followers on Twitter after 120 of his supporters cancelled their donations from Patreon, a membership platform for content creators, as a direct result of Patreon’s censorious practices.
Privacy is slowly becoming a luxury only governments are allowed to enjoy and criminals find a way to take advantage of. The innocent get the short end of the stick! I am here to remind you that it is not too late. As Andreas Antonopoulos vocalizes “There are two ways to express power in this world, voice and exit. When voice is no longer sufficient, exit is a more powerful expression.” It is time for us to realize that the future we create will be the result of our choices and the moral struggle against tyranny has fallen upon individuals to fight and whether we admit or not, the root cause of it is money and attention. And so, to keep this article short. I want to touch on how we can change the outcome of this. It is simple enough that most of you reading this article, know. Yet difficult for most to implement. The answer boils down to — Choice. Choose your money wisely, opt out of the centralized debt instrument — FIAT and instead use Bitcoin as much as possible, as often as possible. Choose to use your money wisely, starve the corrupt, and support the transparent. Choose to spend your attention wisely, starve the platforms that censor us, and support the ones that give us freedom. We all share a responsibility to the future generations.
Inspired by Satoshi Nakamoto, Andreas M. Antonopoulos, Roger Ver
Special thanks to Ali Hashmi.
