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this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2026
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privacy
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Big tech and governments are monitoring and recording your eating activities. c/Privacy provides tips and tricks to protect your privacy against global surveillance.
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First a bit of advice. Your post combines two parts that really ought to be separated:
The first part is not well-received here because saying "we can give up some privacy for safety" in a privacy forum is not a popular argument. You're welcome to make that argument, but if you do it in a "here's my view, change my mind" style and act hostile to people that don’t engage directly or don’t take you seriously, it will lead to many downvotes, and possibly removals depending on the instance. You did get some genuine replies which is great, but, I think if you change your approach with the delivery, you will get more.
Second, next time please put the part about your grievances about the .ml mods doing (the stuff about rational discussuon and mutual respect) in !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com, strip out the insults (the meaningless and rational thinking part) and keep only the parts relevant to privacy in your post to !privacy@lemmy.ca . If you want to include the best comments from the other thread, copy them into a single top level comment instead of the post body, and your responses in a reply to that comment. I hope this all helps you.
My stance on the discussion topic: the only acceptable invasion of privacy to me is one where the information is relevant and specific to the purpose it is being collected, the public and the person who is surveiled are reasonably informed about it. As an example: Having a security camera pointing outside a building (government or private) to record who enters it is reasonable to retain evidence of crime or records of who enters. Having it collect and retain information of who passes by the building on their way to work with no intention of visiting the building is excessive. Having the information collected for the first, reasonable purpose later being sold or seized to be used for other nebulous purposes ("solve terrorism" without a specific incident as to why it is relevant, or to commercially track travel patterns between buildings) is also across the red line for me, however without robust legislation/court enforcement (edit: in the USA, China or anywhere), that's not really within my direct control. I can only control up to the point I can avoid have that information collected in the first place. These general principles of mine you can apply to most of the privacy topics like IDs for age verification etc.
I have never indicated that is my opinion.
Thank you. Changing my approach to the delivery could indeed lead to more genuine replies. How can I modify "Surveillance protects people from terrorism, and sacrificing some privacy makes us safer. Do you agree? If not, what is your counterargument?" to make it easier for people to understand?
I’m having trouble accessing this link on my side. I preserved previous conversations and my grievances in the post for those who wish to understand the full context.
Insults are comments like “Okay, lackey.” or “This is fucking stupid,” which contain no actual argument. The statement “among the meaningless comments made by people who are incapable of rational thinking” reflects a factual observation I made to support my argument.
Could you please guide me on how to create a top-level comment? I included the comments from the other thread in the post because comments cannot be made top-level.
I simply agreed with those comments, so I did not include my actual response in the previous thread. However, if anyone is interested, the previous post and conversations are preserved in the image.
I agree with your principles and your opinions on privacy
However, I am looking for a strong and logical reason that either justifies or invalidates the idea that “surveillance of the public is acceptable” in countries like Russia, China, and India.
For example, something along the lines of: “Surveillance gives terrorists, such as the US and its Zionist appendage, a huge advantage.”
However, ad tracking is not a strong enough argument to compel agreement, as it neither affects people’s daily lives nor appeals to their underlying fears.
I fixed the community link, I originally had an extra g and forgot the numeral zero in dbzer0. !yepowertrippinbastards@lemmy.dbzer0.com
A top level comment I mean by a reply to your own post like you did here. That's where the previous and additional long-form context belongs. Don't force people to scroll past it all in the body text, if it's not the main point of the discussion you wish to have. The body text should be for information relevant to the post title, or treat it like a long subheading. Think of your first reply to your own as having roughly equal weight to every other comment, it sorts itself among the others depending on how useful people feel it is.
This portion of the question you posed, perhaps you didn't mean it this way, but it implies that this is your opinion and you are asking if people agree with it. The way a question is asked often tells a respondent how the asker feels. A skeptic towards the effectiveness of surveillance asking the same question would phrase it more like: "Do you buy the idea that surveillance prevents terrorism and is good for safety?"
If you get the point, allow me to suggest a better presentation that has the questioner start at a neutral position: "To what level, in your opinion, is national surveillance in the name of safety and terrorism prevention acceptable? Does this change between authoritarian governments vs. democracies?" I can explain why this is more conducive to discussion than the other two if you need.
Yeah nah, that part is an insult by you, at some in the previous thread, but throwing insults begets insults. The surrounding observations explaining how you came to that subjective opinion doesn't change that. Hence my suggestion to leave them out if you want better discussion in a new thread, this is also part of the change in approach I recommend. While best omitted entirely, an example of a way to say effectively what you had wrote but without insults, would be "The quality of some of the replies I received were not as I had hoped".
I see this forum is meant for discussing whether the bans are reasonable. However, I’m not looking for validation or to get into another debate about whether my views are reasonable. So I’d rather not post there.
It is not the main point of the discussion, but it provides important context that everyone should see. People who are incapable of reading may easily ignore things they do not like to hear; therefore, letting them decide what is useful or not is not appropriate. For that reason, I believe it is better to include it in the main post, and it is not such a large chunk of text.
I agree, a question structured like this is certainly easier for most people to understand. I’ll use it in the new post if I have the chance.
The tone of this version is indeed more neutral; however, I doubt it will give me the answer I’m looking for a direct counterpoint rather than a discussion about levels of acceptance. That said, I understand why this could serve as a more neutral starting point.
My original answer is
I apologize if I have indeed denied that the statement “among the meaningless comments made by people who are incapable of rational thinking” is an insult.
My point is that it also reflects a factual observation I made to support my argument, as it highlights the contrast between what is meaningful and reasonable and what is not, and is therefore meaningful.
I also agree that "throwing insults begets insults"; therefore, I believe the fault lies with those who started the insults, which naturally provoked my own response.
I completely agree—leaving out the insult can lead to a better discussion and more upvotes. I’m also very grateful to you for helping me organize my thoughts on how to approach this.
When the time comes that I value more about the opinions of those who are both disrespectful and hopeless at reading than the amusement I get from their stupidity, I’ll create a new post even they can follow.