TAB-Talk: a political account of Privacy

The current government just signed a new law that allows our security services to monitor all internet traffic, and the 50 Plus political party and Gordon want to force you to sign into internet with your real ID. On the other hand, WhatsApp, Signal, Facebook messenger and many more started encrypting their messages in a way that makes it impossible for the service providers to read their contents. All the while more people are victim to doxing, extortion and bullying by others sharing their private details and pictures. And still people claim they have nothing to hide.

Communication privacy is something that is heavily under development and under attack at the same time. But why do we need privacy? Won't everything be fine if we can't keep secrets and if we can read every terrorist's text message? Could we trust our government with our messages so they can keep us safe?

Titus Stahl makes a point that communication privacy is not only of personal interest, but that it is essential for democracy to work. And he has a few ideas that we, as (potential) developers of communication solutions, can take into account while developing such systems.

Titus Stahl is an Assistant Professor at the faculty of Philosophy at the RUG, focussed on political and social philosophy. He has a specific interest in communication privacy. Use PGP if you want to email him.

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Example of the voice for the end of the anonymous internet:
[embed]https://twitter.com/HaraldDoornbos/status/833788149373480960[/embed]