The Deviancy Signal: Having "Nothing to Hide" Is a Threat to Us All

Core argument and “deviancy signal”

• Large-scale surveillance systems build a statistical “normal” profile; anyone who suddenly becomes private after long transparency stands out as “deviant.”
• People who live as open books help train this baseline, making later attempts at privacy suspicious and weakening “herd immunity” for those who protect themselves early.
• The article’s tone toward “nothing to hide” people is seen by some as justified anger (they enable the system), by others as excessively contemptuous.

Regime change, history, and risk

• Several comments stress that “safe” democracies are not static: any country can become authoritarian in a few years.
• Historical examples (Nazis using census data, IBM’s role, Khmer Rouge targeting “intellectuals”) are cited to show how neutral data becomes a weapon when politics shifts.
• A key point: once data is collected and stored, you cannot control how a future regime will reinterpret or weaponize it.

“Nothing to hide” – meanings and rebuttals

• Defenders say it often means: “Given my time/energy and trust in current institutions, I won’t pay the cost of strong privacy unless I’m at special risk.”
• Critics argue this ignores:
  • You don’t get to decide what is “worth hiding”; accusers and new laws do.
  • What is dangerous to reveal changes over time (religion, sexuality, debt, location, pregnancy, political activity, etc.).
• Common counterexamples: salaries, medical records, bedroom cameras, bank PINs, or “drop your pants” to show everyone in fact has something to hide.

Corporate surveillance, crime, and everyday harms

• Some argue companies, not governments, are the main data collectors; others respond that governments and criminals routinely tap that data or steal it.
• Privacy is framed as protection not just from states but from fraudsters, abusive partners, bullies, and discriminatory employers or insurers.
• Anecdotes include: billing disputes where secrecy of identifiers prevents fraud, workplace bullies weaponizing transparency, and law enforcement cherry-picking incriminating data while ignoring exculpatory evidence.

Openness vs privacy as strategy

• One camp favors maximal privacy/encryption for everyone to create noise and protect vulnerable people.
• Another notes that secrecy can atomize resistance; some oppressed groups historically chose open visibility (e.g., coming out) to change norms, accepting higher personal risk.
• There is concern that the same privacy tools that protect dissidents also protect organized crime; the tradeoff is acknowledged but unresolved.

Practicality and adoption

• Several comments doubt that a broad cultural shift to strong privacy is realistic without making it effortless and default.
• Encrypted traffic (e.g., HTTPS) is already common, but metadata and behavioral baselines remain powerful.
• Overall, the thread converges on: privacy is essential, harms are societal as well as individual, and “I have nothing to hide” is at best dangerously naïve.