Poster country flags and privacy

by Simon 263 Replies latest forum announcements

• 

  Simon

  If people have the choice then it negates some of the benefits:

  "Dear possible spammer / scammer - we provide a way to protect against your subterfuges from being found out by hiding the fact that you are posting through anonymizing proxies. Would you like to use this feature?"

  ... is effectively what it says.

  If you are so concerned about your identity then why do you surf the web directly from your own location? Why should this site assist you in possibly promoting a false persona?

  Have you ever asked anyone where they are from but been dishonest about where you are from?

  If you want to be anonymous on the internet then it's up to you to make sue you are anonymous. Yes, others may chose to limit what they share with you as a result because I think that they have a right to know and limit how much they share with someone who choses not to share things with them.

  It's not like we're dealing with the CIA or ISIS. There is no hit squad constantly on the lookout to track people down. They are JWs ... they don't even know what is going on in the local KH's most of the time.

  Can you understand why I am skeptical that a country alone from what will inevitably be one from a list of 3 or 4 for +95% of posters would possibly identify you?

  If you think your posts + country already identify you then you are already identifiable because I can say "hey, what if they are from the US ... or the UK ... or ...". Within 3 or 4 countries I've covered most bases.

  
  
• 

  Simon

  As for introducing this now, I would challenge the ethics of a compulsory change that was not in the terms of service AT THE TIME OF JOINING.

  There is no change - you were not identified before (no PII published) and you are not identified after (still no PII published).

  We are just talking about a country flag, nothing more.

  As for Canadian privacy rules, I would think you would be in violation. Canada is the only country with mandatory privacy for .ca domain name registrations. (Contrast that to the US who forbids private .us domain registrations - complete opposite views.)

  There is no sharing of personally identifiable information, it violates no privacy rules. I'm not talking about publishing names and addresses which the above refers to, just the country.

  Even IP addresses are not considered personally identifying. They have been compared to a license plate number - they are publicly presented and link to the owner / subscriber, not the driver / user (different if you are the ISP).

  I have no intention of revealing IP addresses but it's interesting to look at the legal definitions. Considering 'country' as being identifying information is a pretty extreme viewpoint.
• 

  rebel8

  I agree it is not too private to reveal one's country. City, maybe. There could be a person from an extremely tiny country who might want that info concealed, but I suppose that's an obscure situation and the benefit to the many outweigh the detriment to the few.

  For that person, s/he could use other ways to obscure his identity when posting (concealing certain details in one's posts).
  
• 

  coalize

  Simon, it's not possible, to put the flag for the 80 - 90 more big countries (more than 10 000 000 inhabitants for exemple) and for the another one to put a "merged flag" (like "another european countries", another asian countries")?

  I think it will remove a lot of understandable reluctance for the people in little countries!
• 

  bohm

  Rebel8: but that person cannot retroactively hide the information... 
• 

  Simon

  that person cannot retroactively hide the information... 

  That person cannot be too concerned if they never bothered to hide that information.

  If you are on some small island in the pacific or a polar expedition then I can see the country identifying someone but really, it doesn't for any normal user. If you are so identifiable then you would already need to be protecting your identity IMO if it was a concern.

  If you look at the wikipedia article, consider the example of anonymized information:

  When a person wishes to remain anonymous, descriptions of them will often employ several of the above, such as "a 34-year-old white male who works at Target".

  The issue is that *we* would see that description of us as screaming out who we are but of course it doesn't. It's actually way more specific as an example than having the country next to an anonymous alias but still doesn't identify anyone.

  
  
• 

  AnnOMaly

   Why should this site assist you in possibly promoting a false persona?

  Hello? We are 'asylum seekers' from the Watchtower organization and their representatives. 'Apostates' and 'doubters' have to hide who they are to survive, to be in control of their exit, to keep relationships with family and friends. This is supposed to be a safe place to express ourselves in anonymity while we work through and make sense of our doubts, our grief, our anger, our liberation.

  Have you ever asked anyone where they are from but been dishonest about where you are from?

  No. 

  It's not like we're dealing with the CIA or ISIS. There is no hit squad constantly on the lookout to track people down. They are JWs ... they don't even know what is going on in the local KH's most of the time.

  No, we're not dealing with the CIA or ISIS, but I'm sure you remember how painful it was for your family to cut you off. This is the public internet. You do not know who is watching - a suspicious wife, friend, elder. There have been cases on here during my time who were outed by someone who just put two and two together.

  Can you understand why I am skeptical that a country alone from what will inevitably be one from a list of 3 or 4 for +95% of posters would possibly identify you?

  No I don't understand your skepticism. I'm astonished by it. Canada and the USA are vast oceans for a little fish to hide in. However, some members here are from small ponds and can more easily be flushed out. You cannot meaningfully share your JW experiences or offer support (which often involves some personal information) if your country identifier narrows down the odds of who you are likely to be. And if you cannot meaningfully and safely share your JW experiences or offer support here, what's the point of coming to
  this forum? 
• 

  bohm

  Simon: do you believe it is entirely irrational that some posters myself included would choose not to discuss certain things when the flag is shown? 
• 

  AnnOMaly

  That person cannot be too concerned if they never bothered to hide that information.

  The play we had didn't involve dealing with identifying markers like country. If country had been displayed from the get-go, then we would have had the choice whether or not to join up in the first place and take that risk or whether we decided to obscure/withhold other identifying information. As it is, we have revealed certain information BECAUSE we kept our country private!
• 

  rebel8

  This may be of interest. Here is a list of countries and the number of jws in each (full disclosure--it's from Wikipedia).

  You can see there are some really small countries with small numbers of jws. Would the geolocator pick up on those, or would they be aggregated into a certain region? Is there a way to check?

  Of course, even in those, you can obscure your other details. Either don't mention or change unimportant details in stories you tell so they don't lend themselves to being found by Google.For example, avoid mentioning genders, specific place names where things happened, unusual quotes, etc.
  

  So back to the stats, let's remember there are even more ex-jws.