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comment by Super_Cyan
Super_Cyan  ·  3189 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The cross-cultural psychology of Internet privacy concern

The difference between America's level of trust and the rest of the world is amazing.

Here in America, it just feels like we have a lot of faith in strangers. If you start talking to someone in passing, it's common to pretty much know their life story after a few minutes of conversation. It just feels like everyone here is juts so open and welcoming. Look at Facebook and Twitter, for example. Everyone keeps everything public (although, that's been happening less in the past few years). Everyone just adds anyone who asks. We make so much of our lives public, even if they shouldn't be. On top of that, we are willing to just assume that everyone is trustworthy. It's not uncommon to see people keeps doors unlocked and things out in plain sight, despite the fact that they're super easy to steal. People in my area are having their cars pillaged, because people aren't even locking their doors. I've heard stories of people's houses being burglarized, because the thieves are just walking in the front door.

However, I've heard that in other places, it's a lot different. People are concerned about their privacy. People don't talk to each other a lot in public. People keep their stuff safe, and their doors locked. In Europe, they have laws protecting internet privacy, and over here they're being taken away.





psychology  ·  3189 days ago  ·  link  ·  

    In Europe, they have laws protecting internet privacy, and over here they're being taken away.

I feel like American's level of trust is the reason we won't see a significant level of change in the NSA's data mining protocols for a long time. Most people don't understand how damaging some of the information the government is collecting on them can be if used for the wrong reasons. They assume they don't have anything to hide from the government because they haven't done anything wrong.

cvben  ·  3189 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Couple of thoughts:

1) There is quite a bit of money to be made from information so I think companies have found ways to sell its collection as a service to the consumer.

2) When a corporation or other business service is doing something of a slimy nature they often hide deep within the cryptic labyrinth of legal jargon, because they know the average consumer would rather just "trust them on it" than read it and perhaps seek professional interpretation of it.

I also think at a certain point people don't know or don't want to know how little privacy they have.