Joined October 2017
- Tweets 2,819
- Following 794
- Followers 6,546
- Likes 1,892
796 Photos and videos
"Nobody is interested in your boring data."
Boring data is the most valuable kind.
Not your secrets...
Your patterns:
When you wake up.
Where you go every Tuesday.
What you buy when you're sad.
Who you call when you're scared.
Patterns predict when you're vulnerable.
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Zuckerberg has a private island.
Bezos has a superyacht with a decoy yacht.
Musk's exact location is never public.
But your location history is a line item in an ad auction.
Privacy scales with net worth.
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Peter Thiel funded a lawsuit that destroyed Gawker for publishing private information about him.
He also co-founded Palantir, which sells mass surveillance infrastructure to governments worldwide.
His privacy: litigated and protected.
Yours: a product line.
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TikTok tracks keystrokes in its in-app browser.
LinkedIn reads clipboard without asking.
Instagram tracks you across non-Meta sites.
You're not paranoid about apps.
You're paying attention to disclosures buried in their ToS updates.
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Tech companies employ hundreds of lobbyists in Washington.
Privacy advocates cannot afford one.
The law reflects who wrote the arguments that shaped it.
This is not how democracy is supposed to work.
It is how democracy actually works.
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The advertising industry funds most of the internet you use for free.
The advertising industry also funded most of the lobbying that killed federal privacy legislation.
You got a free product.
You paid with the law that would have protected you.
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The surveillance economy was not built on your consent.
It was built during a window when most people didn't know about it, the law hadn't caught up, and the companies moved faster than anyone could regulate.
By the time you understood the terms, you were already in it.
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You have one identity online.
The wealthy have:
— legal structures that separate personal from entity
— PR firms managing the searchable record
— multiple identities across jurisdictions
Your name is your brand by default.
Theirs is a managed asset.
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When a journalist publishes leaked documents exposing government surveillance:
prosecuted.
When a government agency collects data on millions without their knowledge:
classified.
The law protects secrets.
It just decides whose.
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"Privacy is selfish."
Every democracy enshrines it.
Every constitution protects some form of it.
Every human rights framework includes it.
Because without it, every other right becomes performative.
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If a stranger followed you around all day, photographed everywhere you went, logged everyone you spoke to, and sold that information...
It would be stalking.
When a company does it, it's called a business model and it's listed on the stock exchange.
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"People who care about privacy are antisocial."
Letters were private.
Phone calls were private.
Diaries were private.
Conversations were private.
Humans have always assumed their communications were not being harvested.
That assumption isn't antisocial.
Violating it is.
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"Regulation would kill innovation."
GDPR passed in 2018:
Europe's tech sector grew after it
Privacy-respecting companies gained market share
The ad industry adapted within 18 months
Regulation didn't kill innovation.
It killed the business model that depends on your ignorance.
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They called it the attention economy.
In a real economy, you're paid for your attention.
In this one, your attention is sold to the highest bidder and the revenue goes to them.
They kept the word economy.
They dropped the part where you get paid.
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"Only criminals care about privacy."
Your bank encrypts transactions.
Your doctor locks medical records.
Your lawyer seals case files.
You whisper secrets.
You password-protect your phone.
Privacy isn't paranoia, it's how basic trust works.
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"Deleting the app removes your data."
Uninstalling removes it from your phone.
Not from their servers.
Not from their backups.
Not from the brokers they already sold to.
The app was just the interface.
The extraction already happened.
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"Surveillance capitalism is too abstract to care about."
It is not abstract when:
— your insurance premium rises from your data
— your job application is filtered by algorithm
— your loan is denied by a model you can't see
Abstract only means it hasn't hit you yet.
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"You can't function in modern society without giving up privacy."
Yet:
- Politicians use encrypted phones.
- Executives use privacy-first services.
- Journalists use anonymous tools.
Privacy isn't impossible.
It's inconvenient for profit models built on your exposure.
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The data broker industry operates with almost no regulation.
The same Congress that can't agree on a privacy law passed the Financial Services Modernization Act in 3 months when banks needed it.
Urgency in legislation tracks with who needs the legislation.
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"You chose to put your life online."
You chose to use a tool that society increasingly requires for employment, banking, healthcare access, and communication.
Choice requires an alternative.
When the alternative is exclusion, it isn't a choice.
It's a condition of participation
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