There’s an inner turmoil in resurrecting my article writing and publishing.

In my personal life I’ve been increasingly looking at my privacy online, predominantly in response to a growing awareness of ‘big tech’ and it’s never-ending data collection and monetisation. The documentary ‘The Social Dilemma’ started the ball rolling back in 2020, but even then there was still an acceptance – one that many of us either happily or at least begrudgingly comply with – that this is the price we pay for these free services, many of which are unfortunately still market-leading, or provide sufficient perceived value to mean we minimise the flipside to the detriment of our personal data ownership.

With the launch of Meta’s ‘Threads’ app a shared screenshot of a comprehensive list of data points caught my eye. The list detailed all the different data that is collected from users after the acceptance of the apps terms and conditions required to use the app (the T’s & C’s that is, not the data). Seeing the information grab laid bare was shocking, even with a certain level of comprehension that personal data was being collected. The categories of data included ‘Health & Fitness’, ‘Financial Info’ and ‘Sensitive Info’, amongst a raft of others (including the curious ‘Other Data’, should the exhaustive list of other categories fail to cover all potential options). Where is the justification for this data being available to a Twitter-style app, let alone communicated to the apps developer, Meta? Solely for monetisation, obviously. “We asked and you agreed, that’s why”.

Consent is the key. There’s nothing to stop you approaching someone in the street and asking for their banking username and password, it is up to the individual whether they consent to hand over this information. But as a society we happily hand this and more over to huge tech companies every day.

So I’ve increasingly started to withdraw my consent. I’m gradually ‘degoogling’ myself, and have become much more aware when signing up to websites and other online entities what information I’m sharing and what I’m willing to accept regarding my personal data.

And now I’m starting to reinvigorate my online writing, and under my own name of all things… I’ve already shared personal details in my most recent articles, and anyone who knows me, be it friends, family, work colleagues or someone I went to school with x years ago, would immediately see information that they would be otherwise unaware of.

The difference, in my mind, is an economic decision. It’s a case of weighing up the risk of the knowledge being publicly available versus the significance in including it in the point I’m making.