Every now and then I hear about the whole āinternet is foreverā thing. Iāve made attempts at digital privacy and such, but always eventually fall of - convenience wins out, or I just forget things enough, or
What triggered this is some post about ChatGPTās questionable practices, and one of the top comments that read āAssume that anything you write online will be stored forever and then read at your funeralā. Another person agrees that everyone should operate like this. Iāve gone looking and found variations who say you should never post anything you wouldnāt put on a postcard, or wouldnāt be willing to show your boss or your grandma, or wouldnāt want attached to your name and address. People who say they never use the internet for anything remotely personal, or that they keep strict boundaries between private and online life. I literally canāt comprehend it.
I have trauma-dumped on ChatGPT before I got rid of my account. I keep resolving to not get personal with it again and literally canāt help myself at times. Earlier today I was playing with it, generating fanficky scenarios with favorite tropes for fun - at present, Iām trying to limit myself to only fun stuff like that, or factual questions for ChatGPT, moving more personal work to my glitchy local LLM. Before this though, I have a long-standing issue of oversharing basically anywhere. I donāt have much social media - mostly Reddit and Discord, the latter I keep trying to use less because people say itās bad for digital privacy. Even then, these arguments were being brought against ChatGPT and other AI - hardly an open online forum, but it still counts like writing on one.
Iāve made attempts at digital privacy in the past
But those kinds of injunctions - assume everything you write is not only permanent, but will be used against you/shared with everyone/tied to your name and address regardless of any precautions, makes the whole business even more hopeless. At least one alternative is a kind of school-of-fish theory; thatās sort of what Iāve been working with. Sure itās out there, and itās permanent, but thereās enough legwork involved to trace it to YOU, specifically, that no one would actually care to do so because youāre one or two tiny data points among billions, so itās as good as anonymous. Better if you compartmentalized so an outsider would fine it even harder to trace back to you. Not truly anonymous obviously, but close enough; to give pause or exercise some discretion but also not worry excessively. Worry more about what youāre sharing with whom, the actual users. This stops working if youāre assuming that everything is going to be used against you, or attached to you. It makes posting basically impossible. If youāre like me and would rather nothing be read at your funeral, not even the shit you MEANT to publish for public consumption, youāre left with zero outlets for communication.
So of course, only ever be surface level. Never be honest, or open, or vulnerable. Never ask for help or advice or acknowledge if something is wrong Never confide to anyone. Never share a testimony or an experience. Never tell anyone what you like, or how you think, or who you are. Be an island and a vault.
If thereās no one IRL to fill those needs, then perish.
At this point in life, I think Iād actually prefer that.
Because on top of a decade of chronic oversharing, I very much still WANT to put more of myself out there right now. Thatās the worst and biggest issue I have that makes this whole worry so painful. Iāve thought about looking for penpals or accountability groups but worry about privacy and the platforms. Iāve wondered about just joining other Discord groups since Iāve already handed over enough info but canāt be bothered.
Literally the entire reason I (think I) do this is because I have no one IRL. Iām sure Iām not alone in this. I have one, singular social contact and if I go NC with them, Iāll have virtually no one. Itās not like I can use them to fulfill any of those needs anyway without being told ājust donāt think about itā or āyouāre lying and making everything upā. And ācommon sense of the internetā says one SHOULDNāT look online for any kind of relief. Donāt ask for reassurance on Reddit or Lemmy or social media, itās personal. Donāt look for penpals or online friends, remember your DMs will be saved and broadcasted. Absolutely never touch any kind of mental health board or group, if you canāt afford therapy or no one around you is competent then you should just self-destruct harder like they did in the old days (seriously these always feel overlooked in these kinds of privacy/internet-is-forever discussions). Canāt even use AI as a substitute because that also counts as āwriting onlineā that you should be afraid of having saved.
I literally canāt fathom being private on the internet at this point. I donāt understand how people who think like that survive. Iām probably going to end up continuing on exactly as I please because itās better than rotting. Even with sharing everything I feel like Iām dying of loneliness and I donāt care how dramatic that sounds. Same for āI donāt see the point of living if I canāt chat and overshare with people on the internetā.
Iām 1000% behind trying to socialize and get a network IRL. A few issues being 1) how slow that is .2) how limited it is. Online chatting is efficient, effortless ā although my own experience is doing less of that, both by choice, and in attempts to be more āprivateā and just because communities get slow or drop off or thereās no point because people ignore me. Discord is my #1 privacy sin as far as apps go. And even in this paranoia, IRL communication can have issues. What if they wonāt use your special private app? What if they want to email? I keep seeing people say that putting someone in your contacts is bad for privacy but it feels wrong to lie to people like that. This, that, and the other, all with this obsessive management of how youāre presented, treating every text or post as a legacy, that I just canāt even comprehend.
A (paid) VPN allows you to use stuff like discord without compromising your privacy, as long as you donāt share personal informations. Mullvad, for example, lets you even pay with cash.
There are private mail services, paid ones, from companies that value their customersā privacy. I think a couple of them that Iāve checked accept cash payments too.
These are just a couple examples of services for using the internet without compromising your privacy. There are tons of sources to research deeper in the topic and decide what you need to achieve your goal.
Thereās also nothing wrong in being the āweirdā one in your circle that doesnāt use WhatsApp, or that doesnāt save contacts in the phone. In my opinion, at least.
Remember you donāt need complete anonimity to protect your privacy, you just need to blend with the crowd and NOT give away personal sensitive data like you are doing with questionable services like chatGPT.
Iād already given this kind of information elsewhere, many times, over years. Sometimes I regret it, and try to resolve not to do it anymore, or scrub accounts which feels good but people say it useless, but it always fails. In all honestly I donāt WANT to stop, because it has yielded positive results before, and because I literally donāt see much of a point in doing anything without at least the approximation of an online social life.
Meanwhile Iām taking sentiments like the OP to suggest that ALL online communication is unsafe. If I truly believed that everything was being stored to be used against me, or was secretly attached to my real name, I wouldnāt even give one-word inane responses to anything, much less discuss anything deeper or create anything.
A real sociale life, plus the help of a psychologist, will yeld better results. The second will be useful not only to improve your social life, but also to help with what seems a paranoid approach to this matter.
I have already explained you that you do not need anonymity to protect your privacy and that itās pretty easy to blend with the crowd so that your online activity becomes pretty useless to anyone, even though it could still potentially be traced back to you.