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Comment by somenameforme | Hacker News Reader

This claim is regularly repeated, but strongly and directly contradicted by literally every study on the topic. Here [1] is one from Pew in late 2019.

81% of Americans believe the potential risks of companies collecting about them outweighs and benefits. 79% are very/somewhat concerned about how the data collected on them is used. The big issue 81% also believe that little or no control over the data collection. Interestingly not only do people also feel that the government will do nothing to hold companies accountable, they are also concerned about how the government is using their data.

Such results are demonstrated in every single survey. People are overwhelmingly concerned about how companies are using their data, but feel completely helpless.

[1] - https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2019/11/15/americans-an...

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I hear you. It’s just that the rise of TikTok contradicts all the survey results. I.e. I don’t see their sentiments reflect in their actions.

I mean if you’re concerned about your data and feel helpless, simply don’t use the app. But TikTok keeps rising doesn’t it.

In other words: "if you're concerned about your weight, simply stop eating choco"

The problem is "simply stop" is actually not that simple

This assumes an implausible view of rationality, knowledge and intent.

People who intend action-X do not also intend all the consequences of X, nor are even plausibly aware of what those are. And even when they are, those are often so numerous that a time-bound agent (a person) isnt going to enumerate and weigh each for most actions.

One common case is collective action problems, eg., the tragedy of the commons: by each fishing to their intended amount they harm their ability to fish in the future, which was not intended.

Social media is a very plausible case: by each posting to their intended amount, their create the unintended result of the "gamification & publication of social life as such", and thus harm their future ability to socialise as intended.

It really doesn't.

Nearly every single major site is tracking you alongside enabling tracking by third parties. Something as innocuous as a call to Google fonts works as a sufficient tracking source. Your phone, regardless of who you pick, is not only tracking you but also readily forwarding everything on over to various government agencies with effectively 0 accountability. "Smart" cameras and other server connected street view cameras are even gradually destroying real life privacy - even being able to create effective real life tracking thanks to those handy OCR friendly license plates we all have.

Trying to preserve your privacy by not using TikTok is like trying to combat climate change by not barbequing. It will have a non-zero impact, but even if literally every single person did this to the point that TikTok went out of business - absolutely nothing would meaningfully change.

Take it with a grain of salt, but Alphabet has long maintained that they do not track from Googl Fonts:

https://developers.google.com/fonts/faq/privacy

It seens like an odd thing to lie about, given how nefarious they are with other things.

I don't think my statements and those poll results are at odds. If you look at the phrasing, the personal data in question is never specified. People may be imagining their identity/social security number being the data they are concerned about and not, say, that they were geolocated outside of a kohls.

Page 3. The top two concerns are social media sites (85%) and advertisers (84%). This isn't about social security numbers. The paper also gets into data profiling, which surprisingly and encouragingly, the vast majority of Americans are aware of and also concerned by. Tracking your location in real life is something extremely few people would be okay with.

It's interesting because this issue is also completely bipartisan. 75% of Americans believe there should be more government regulation on what companies are allowed to do with data, including 70% of republicans.

Stated preferences vs revealed preferences. Saying that you care about privacy makes you appear smart but in practice most people only care about privacy in embarrassing situations

people vote with their feet. Instead of looking at studies just look at how people behave, words are cheap. These studies are just evidence of one thing, that people like to appear security conscious in public. People are entirely in control over their data collection and they know it, they can just remove any app they don't like from their phone. The reason they don't is because they get value out of it.

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