Social Cooling (2017)

I think this is a good example of how pro-privacy arguments should be framed. It is takes the varied aspects and complex implications of tracking users across the web (or even in the real world), and distills it down into an easy to understand concept. When you think privacy of in in the terms of 'social cooling', or consider things like China's 'social credit' system, I can't help be think we are much closer to the world depicted in the…

This site makes the wrong conclusion. People game their social scores by being provocative edgelords. There’s almost no incentive on social media to conform. And every incentive to stand out. Just look around at our political situation, you see far less conformity, and extremes in political expression. We even elected President Edgelord.

I was going to write at length about my concerns on this topic, and then I decided not to. Because it's entirely possible that one day many years from now, a prospective employer/insurer/whatever finds such a comment and flags me for it. That's the cooling effect in a nutshell.

Social media and interconnectivity has had negative consequences on society. It took what was always there and made it instant, and far wide spreading in the blink of an eye. I liked the part about privacy is the right to be imperfect. The privilege to be invisible, to be anonymous, is a right we never knew we had..