this post was submitted on 03 May 2025
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Privacy

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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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This is an open question on how to get the masses to care...

Unfortunately, if other people don't protect their privacy it affects those who do, because we're all connected (e.g. other family members, friends). So it presents a problem of how do you get people who don't care, to care?

I started the Rebel Tech Alliance nonprofit to try to help with this, but we're still really struggling to convert people who have never thought about this.

(BTW you might need to refresh our website a few times to get it to load - no idea why... It does have an SSL cert!)

So I hope we can have a useful discussion here - privacy is a team sport, how do we get more people to play?

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[–] pineapplelover@lemm.ee 7 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Convince them to trust open source

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 7 points 4 days ago

The only source that can be trusted ✊

[–] MoonlightFox@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

While I agree in theory, in practice open source has a similar amount of expected trust as closed source can have in many cases. I use all sorts of open source software without reading the code. I ain't got time for that.

I can trust that software from a lot of organizations are trustworthy even if it is closed source, but I can't trust any open source repo without reading the code. I habe to use other ways to evaluate it, is it probable that someone has audited it? Is it popular? Is it recognized as safe and trustworthy? Is the published and finished build the same as the one I would get if I built it myself?

But yes, you can never be 100% certain without open source and auditing it yourself.

I do trust that my travel pass app from a government organization doesn't install malware / spyware on my phone. I can't trust a random github repo even if it is open source.