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Discord recently announced new ID requirements for users. People pretty much universally disliked that, and links to Palantir were quickly uncovered, which makes it all a lot more nefarious.
Now, I’m not the biggest privacy hawk. I’ve generally been willing to trade a bit of personal data for the sake of security or convenience.
This feels different, though. There’s something deeply disconcerting about a company tying your government identity to your online speech, especially in the current political climate, and especially when that company has already suffered a data breach that exposed 70,000 IDs.
This also isn’t an argument about whether I want my age verified or not. Look, I get the importance of protecting children. But companies seem to be using that as a cover for other things (less “protecting our children,” more “we have a vested interest in knowing who you are”).
It’s also not an argument of “well, if you have nothing to hide…” This is the argument of those willing to allow the erosion of basic rights to privacy, and it should be rejected out of hand, regardless of political affiliation or beliefs. This isn’t a left or right issue.
Everyone has to decide what they are willing to surrender to the wave of AI, government surveillance, and data aggregation. For me and…