If people are given the right to complete privacy, some will abuse it. Thirty years’ experience of social networks on the internet has proved that the Scottish philosopher was right. So there is a moral case for removing some degree of privacy on the internet. Arguing otherwise is the kind of illiterate technological determinism which too often derails discussions of freedom and privacy on the internet. It is the simple, almost apolitical recognition that privacy is one of the things that we need to be fully human that is the strongest defence of private, encrypted communications online.

Source: The Guardian April 26, 2018 12:11 UTC