Data privacy: how to counter the "I have nothing to hide" argument?

Ask them to unlock their phone and give it to you. Chances are, you'll quickly find out they have things they'd like to hide.
- I have nudes on my phone. I honestly don't care if they leak one day, in fact, I have been to nudist beaches and I'm pretty sure there are online pictures of me naked already.
  That's completely different to showing naked pictures of me to colleagues, etc.
  
  But if your photos leak, your colleagues could see them. Someone can blackmail you. Or do that using any other sensitive information.

One thing I often see is people not understanding the difference between secrecy and privacy. They ask why it matters if you're not doing anything wrong. A UK government minister actually said "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear", and then backpedaled when someone pointed out they were quoting Joseph Goebbels. The analogy I've seen is simple: I'm sure you don't do anything illegal in the shower, but I'm also pretty sure most people would be uncomfortable with a law that required you to have a police officer standing in you bathroom with a video camera to record you showering, just in case.
The other thing is the assumption that any information about you that the government actually has about you will only be used against you if you commit a crime, in which case you'll deserve it - if you're not a bad person then it's fine. This is a double fallacy.
First, we've seen that information can be used to do all sorts of things regardless of wrongdoing - if someone knows enough about you, they can use it to manipulate you. I don't mean blackmail or whatever, although that's an option. I mean that with a clear enough picture of your preferences and biases and habits, someone can tailor their actions and information to your psychology and make you think whatever they want you to agree with.
Second, it assumes that you won't ever commit a crime because crimes are bad things and you're not a bad person. This overlooks the possibility of you being mistakenly accused while innocent, but more importantly it overlooks the possibility that the government will change into something that holds different moral values to yours. Even in the modern world we've seen places outlaw abortions, or criminalise homosexuality, or pass laws on what religions you're allowed to follow. If that happens in your country and you find yourself on the wrong side of whatever arbitrary line they've now drawn, you may regret giving them so much information about you - information that lets them identify you, prove that you broke their new rules, and ruin your life in so many ways.
The default principal of any exchange with governments, businesses, or any entity taking your information should be to give as much information as is required for them to perform the operation you're requesting of them, and no more - and wherever possible to only engage with those entities that you trust to have that information; a trust that they earn by a verified and unbroken track record of ethical and trustworthy behaviour.
- This is great, well done.

"But, when I talk to people in general, most seem to not worry because they “have nothing to hide”, and most are only worried about their passwords, banking apps and not much else."
Sounds like they have passwords and banking apps to hide, You should demand their bank account and credit card details to verify that they have made no illicit actions.
If they point out that they have no reason to trust you with that information, that's when you point out that police, government, or corporate groups are made out of people just like yourself. They might have some codes of conduct, or a vetting process, but it just takes one person malicious or careless enough for you to be severely impacted.
- It's simpler actually, despite all the words the state still communicates a certain atmosphere of intimidation. When you submit something to the police, it's not because you consider it obviously right, it's because you obey their order.
  So despite legalities being different, for privacy people still feel afraid to say that they'd hide something.
  It's a matter of emotion. They are not afraid of you, but they are afraid of police. For some people this means that showing something to you is fine and to police not, for others (the majority) - the opposite. You won't hurt them, police may.
- What if I also don’t worry about these and don’t store my banking information?
  
  So you’re hiding your bank information?
- Yeah cause corporations are going to steal money off my card. I'd have zero issues sharing that data if their water a reason.. I regularrly share steam/gamepass password. You people are insane with broken logic.

I feel like the people in this thread saying you should ask for personal details are kind of missing the point of the 'nothing to hide' argument. It's not that they feel they have nothing to hide from everyone, it's that they feel they have nothing to hide from those with access to their data (governments/corporations). Knowing intimate life details of someone you know personally is very different from knowing intimate life details of some random person you'll never meet. I would argue something like this instead:
Unless you're a newborn, everyone in the US has broken thousands of laws in their life. It's unavoidable. If corporations/the government have records of all that, if people don't have privacy, the powers that be have the power to put anyone and everyone in prison for the rest of their lives at their discretion.
Even if you're not worried now, once your data is out there it's not coming back. You may agree with the policy of government and corporations now, but can you be sure that'll be the case in ten years? Twenty? Thirty? Who knows how laws and regimes will change, and through all that, they'll always have power over you.
- While this is far more elaborate, I agree it's the best approach if the other person is willing to have a discussion.
  You may sprinkle it with actual examples of what's happening in China with their point system: not getting bus tickets or loan grants or whatever because you not even mentioned something critical somewhere but are associated with someone how did.
  They may say it's unrealistic but 30 years ago Eastern Germany was the same. They just lacked the tech and needed to recruit regular people as spies.
- This is a good point and got me thinking of something that would be a better example. I understand the point that it's because they don't really care about some corporation without a face collecting their info, which is different from you who they personally know asking them to unlock their phone and give it to you.
  Maybe a good example would be their baby monitor or home camera? Let them know that anyone on the internet can tap into their camera feed because those companies don't lock them down. Not that anyone is looking at it, but anyone could if they wanted to. Would that be a more convincing argument to ask if they are fine with that since they have nothing to hide?
- Finally someone who gets it. Imo, the comments asking those people to hand over bank details and similar stuff can harm the argument. I mean, if someone told me that, I'd just say I do that every time I go to the bank. Or my bank has those details and they're made up of people like me. It won't really convince me that privacy is important since most of them probably have never experienced getting their accounts hacked.
- they have nothing to hide from those with access to their data (governments/corporations).
  That is only a good point until you remind them that the government/corporations aren't just entities but also consist of people, any of which could end up being their neighbor tomorrow, hold their next job interview, be their next potential tinder match, etc.
  Of course the rest of what you wrote is true too, but I really felt the need to point this out.
  To give an example: I'm in data science. As part of a contract work I had access to a csv dump of a database of addresses of all people who ordered campaign material for a specific political campaign. I could have easily sated my own curiosity and checked who in my near vacinity is in that list, as well as the exact amounts that they ordered and some other notes about them. Suddenly it wouldn't just be some corporation anymore but their neighbor.
- Those corporations and governements have people employed who can have (and usually do have) access to the data. Intentional or unintentional. So would they still be comfortable knowing that I'm able to lookup their data? That's what the personal questions are about.
  If the government still had personal interactions with a clerk at a desk, would they still be comfortable sharing everything they do now?
  
  It's not unreasonable to answer yes to that first question; that's why it's not the most sound argument. I was pretty firmly in the 'nothing to hide' camp for a long time because that was the only reason I heard. I really don't care if some random government office worker knows about all the intimate details about my life. I don't mind if you know I've been having prostate problems, but that's not something I would tell to someone I know personally.

Ask them for their social security number, mother’s maiden name, favorite pet, favorite teacher, high school mascot. It should start to dawn on them
- Ask them for their kids’ social security number, DOB, etc. I’ve done that a couple of times and it always gets a reaction.
  People are less concerned about themselves, but generally very protective of their children.

Saying "I don't need privacy because I've got nothing to hide" is like saying "I don't need free speech because I've got nothing to say".
- I like this simil.
- Yet here you are, posting on a website that doesn't allow absolute free speech.

You may have nothing to hide now but what if your (political) opponents reach a point where they have access to your data and the (political) power to use it? What happens if they don't like your opinions which (you think) you don't have to hide now?
My opinions may mostly align with the current general consensus in my country and since I'm not politically active I am rather unlikely to be harmed because of my opinions in the foreseeable future (unless I call someone 1 Pimmel). But there are certain developments that are troubling and there are people who don't like what I've said on the internet (duh). Now, I'm not exactly anyone important and realistically there are far more important targets than me personally. But still, it's not unthinkable that the things I've said (things I've looked at on the internet, things I've bought, things I've like/upvoted) might be used to my detriment if certain people came into a position where they have access to any stored data on me.
This applies regardless of your political leanings. If data exists, no matter how harmless it may seem, there's always the possibility of people who REALLY don't like it getting access.

Data privacy isn’t to protect you from getting caught doing wrong things, it’s to prevent malicious actors from having the information to manipulate you. You don’t want phishers to have access to your life details that security questions ask about, even if each one is nothing to hide. You don’t want scammers to know where you went to school, who your teachers were, and what clubs you were in to build up a convincing backstory for their facade. You don’t want someone who wants to get something out of you to know who is important to you and threaten or impersonate them. It’s not about having something to hide, it’s about hiding personal details from those with malicious intent
- related post
- You don’t want someone who wants to get something out of you
  Every corporation ever
- This exactly, and the more victims the scammers can get the more it supports their endeavors.

Edward Snowden remarked:
Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say.
There is a wikipedia article regarding this argument
- This is a nice quote, however it misses the goal of the original post.
  For example, I fall into the group of people that don't care about their digital privacy, but I fully support anyone who decides to go invisible on the internet.

I feel like most replies here are missing the point.
The entire premise of the statement is that privacy is about defending your dirty secrets. When people say "nothing to hide" they're really saying "I'm not going to post about anything I want to hide", but that still misses the point.
For me it's the subtle principles of advertising. I don't want to be advertised to, at all. I certainly don't want some blog to know what adverts I'm likely to engage with, because that is simply none of their business.
That's it. If that doesn't bother some people, that's entirely fine. I'm a bit weird, and the whole idea of being tracked to figure out what things I might want to buy makes me very grumpy.
- I hate ads, with a burning passion, but when I get stuck with one that's wildly irrelevant to my interests, I know that I'm doing something right. Feels good to be a blank spot on the algorithm.
  
  sometimes i get ads for like maternity stuff or jewelry or cars
  i'm a guy with a vasectomy and not enough money for a car
  it's very funny
- I am doing a paper on this. Privacy as hiding something shameful is a dated concept, like, before villages were a thing. I haven't time to develop, but privacy was always a privilege of the rich. Back when people were in villages and technology was word of mouth, rich from the time being were in their castles. Knowing what is on peoples mind is a old form of control, while having the right of privacy is freedom. I am a grad student and I have to develop more on the subject, but it's not about hiding your porn watchlist, lol. It's about having control of your own decisions. If you understand how someone thinks, changing and satisfying (or pretending to) is actually pretty easy.
  If anyone like Futurama, watch the "Killer App" episode
  
  It's wrong to be dismissive. Hiding something shameful is now, and will likely always be, a critical element of privacy. I agree that it's not the whole story (or perhaps even the most important part) but it's certainly the part that people many people spend the most time thinking about.
- You're not weird ! Quite the contrary, we are on the right path to fight those greedy corporation !! To bad we're the minority ://!

Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor and government whistleblower, has been credited with the quote "Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say". Snowden has argued that privacy is a fundamental right and that without it, individuals cannot have anything for themselves. The "nothing to hide" argument has been used to defend the collection and use of government data beyond surveillance and disclosure, but critics argue that it is inherently paradoxical and that what is hidden is not necessarily relevant. Snowden has also stated that the burden of justification falls on those seeking to infringe upon human rights, and that nobody needs to justify why they "need" a right.

Cite historical examples of seemingly innocuous, public information falling into the wrong hands.
e.g. The Nazis used demographic records (marriages, births, christenings, etc.) in conquered lands to ID Jews and other "undesirables".
- And (if they're American) when they go "well, MY government wouldn't do that!" counter with how Meta has already, numerous times, gotten people arrested for talking about getting abortions on Facebook
  
  The US government used Census Bureau information to identify Japanese-Americans.
- The couldn't the person just cite all the times that hasn't happened?
  
  I don't think so. Examples of it happening demonstrate that it can happen. OTHO, examples of it not happening does not demonstrate that it cannot happen.

Maybe you don't think you have anything to hide today, but what about the future? Millions of women gave their period-tracking apps that kind of personal/private data when Roe was in effect because at the time, states couldn't use it to prosecute women who miscarry or get abortions. Now that Roe is gone, that data is out there and can't be recalled.
By the same token, everyone who went out and got a 23-and-me genetic test gave their genomes to private companies who can legally sell that information to insurance companies that can use that information to hike their premiums or terminate their policies if they think your genes predispose you to some expensive-to-treat condition. Also those family trees don't lie about whose kids are the product of adultery, hahahahaha
You do have things to hide in the sense that they're nobody else's business.
Also, some countries have established digital privacy as a right (in particular, EU countries) and that's not just about protecting your dirty stinky secrets, it's also about preventing social media being weaponized as political or information warfare vectors based on private information obtained without your consent. (the same profiling used to target relevant commercial ads to you is also usable to target information warfare and propaganda to your susceptible relatives, and they vote in addition to giving racist rants at holiday dinner)
In other words, your privacy is intrinsically valuable- if it wasn't, exploiting your private information wouldn't be a multi-billion-dollar industry

Ask them how much they make or their medical record.
Tell them you will pay google several cents for that info.

They are appealing to the fallacy that hiding things means bad behavior.
Not true. There are plenty of good reasons to hide things. Social security numbers, income, bank account info, even personal preferences.
Privacy != bad

How Target Knew a High School Girl Was Pregnant Before Her Parents Did
Facebook turned over chat messages between mother and daughter now charged over abortion
- Father locked out of Google account after taking photos of his child
  NSA employees share scraped nudes
  Tesla employees turn camera footage into memes
  Facebook silently experiments on how much it can manipulate its users
  
  A bit more historic, but still very relevant. The FBI used surveillance in repeated attempts to discredit Martin Luther King JR. It's chilling how they used the information they gathered to try to get rid of MLK any way they could. They were even trying to use information they gathered to convince him to commit suicide.

The awful story from that mother and daughter that had their private conversations send to court for abortion by Meta: https://techcrunch.com/2023/07/11/teen-and-mom-plead-guilty-to-abortion-charges-based-on-facebook-data/?guccounter=1
- The thing that astounds me about this story and those like it is that people discuss such things on unencrypted messaging apps. As much as possible, I don’t discuss anything more significant than the weather on those platforms.
- That's terrible of course, but the story alone doesn't really counter the 'nothing to hide' argument when they did have something to hide.

It is like saying you don’t need free speech if you don’t have anything to say. *corrected hide to say.
- Or you don't need free speech because you have nothing to say personally.
- Sadly, plenty of people wouldn't care about that argument

I use a monetary argument.. If my data can become revenue to the company then I must have a part of this revenue ..if they are not paying me for my property (my data) then I should keep my data from them
- Additionally, and more deleterious, if a company knows you're looking to take a vacation, or to buy new shoes, they can increase the price that is served to you across all of your internet searches. This is the counter to the privacy argument which separates automated/computer knowledge vs personal knowledge. It's one thing for someone to be reading all of my Gmail, which is creepy and invasive, vs Alphabet scanning my email and building a consumer profile on me so that all of my searches are tagged and referenced to extract maximum value from my online purchases, which isn't creepy or invasive (imho) but may materially affect my quality of live which is bad in a totally different way.
  
  Wow great addition man..this is way better argument

I generally ask the person whether they close the door when they go take a dump. Everyone does it, everyone knows why you're going into that room.
- The Modern Rogue yt channel put it best imo "It's not that you're doing anything wrong but it's your business"

“You have nothing to hide until the government decides you do.” And by then it’ll be too late to hide it.

I got nothing to hide in my asshole either, doesn't mean I want you rifling around through there. Its creepy

ask for their passwords

Ask them for nudes, their porn habits, what toys they have and what their dirtiest kinks are.
- I post that information publicly all the time.
  
  Could you do that now? Along with all your social media accounts, your real life address and your place of work?

I usually reply with "Cool, you won't mind if I install a camera in your bathroom then"

If you have nothing to hide, you wouldn't mind handing me your unlocked phone so I can scroll through your texts and search history, go ahead.
- Sorry, that would take too long, but I'll send a copy so they can see how utterly boring/undocumented my life is.
  
  And that is why it's hard to explain. People live different lives. What's unimportant to some may be important to many others. It's not all the same. Privacy loss is not an immediate problem. But if and when it becomes a problem, it's a huge damn problem for an individual.

It's not what you have to hide, it's how they want to use what they can see. They can weaponize anything and the only reason you don't care yet is that they haven't made you a target yet.
Continued good luck.

What you need to hide now is not the same as what you will need to hide in the future.
- In the 1930s, the Netherlands kept detailed records of ethnicity for every citizen. No one thought this was unnecessary, as ethnicity wasn't something that could ever be used against you.
  That line of thought ended when the Germans took over in may 1940. Unfortunately those records still existed, and aided the most efficient genocide in human history. Without those records, many jews, sinti and Roma would've been able to deny their ancestry and evade being murdered.
  Privacy from government and corporations will one day save lives.

Just ask them a bunch of indiscreet questions. Do you watch porn? What category of porn turns you on the most? Do you think it's appropriate to have sex in a room on the ground floor without curtains? What? You own curtains? What is your salary? What's the amount of money in your savings account? Why do you have so many loud disagreements with your partner? Don't you like visiting your in-laws? What's inside the drawer at the bottom, next to your bed? Have you had any embarassing and cringy moments in the last few years you'd like to share?
Of course this is only the beginning. It's not like the corporations collect data and then don't do anything with it. You'd also have to be okay with them deducing information about you. Try to use that information to manipulate you into giving them attention, buying the stuff they want you to buy. That system is in place to nudge you into thinking what the algorithm wants you to think. App developers are actively trying to make the apps more addicting so you spend more time with them... People just get exploited with the help of all of that data.
If people really are that tame and have no secret fantasies, no sensitive data, no shame, no personal shortcomings they'd like to forget... And they don't care about the annual security breaches of big platforms people use willingly, but that information then gets used by people who use it to send you spam or impersonate you and trick your grandma to send her retirement to some scammer... And they like to be shoved around by big corporations like cattle, used to fuel the capitalist system... ...I myself tend to leave them alone. There is nothing that can be done at this point. Those people are lost, and they don't want freedom for themselves.
- Or maybe "do you always obey the speed limit in your car, and who is your insurance company?" or something among those lines...
  
  This is a great question to use because how many of these people have given their smartphone location permissions? Google knows when they speed already.
- I don't think this works, because any sexual stuff they don't think google / Mega Corp cares about. Which is true google doesn't give a shit if you have sex without curtains, they only care if you are shopping for curtains.
  And the rest of the questions only matter if you are running for office or something which again 99.9% aren't, so they don't give a shit.
  I'm all for privacy, but the argument I have nothing to hide except bank account passwords etc is hard to argue with, when it comes to the average person, because the truth is that they don't matter and most likely no-one cares about their specific data.
  Most data is only valuable in mass, unless you're being criminally investigated or something.
  
  Perhaps you never heard of the psychological targeting done for political purposes through the misuse of mass data. (Cambridge Analytics)
  Edit: to be clear, people in the comments have already provided many examples of situations where corporations/governing bodies have misused specific people's personal data (zoom employees watching webcams without knowledge), however I also don't think it makes sense to brush off the impact of mass data available as a result of much of the population freely giving away their personal data.
  
  I’m all for privacy, but the argument I have nothing to hide ... is hard to argue with, when it comes to the average person, because the truth is that they don’t matter and most likely no-one cares about their specific data.
  In that case, please post your real name, tax id (SSN in the States) and annual household income.
  N.B. None of this information is private.
  
  I think we're talking about an abstract concept here. The example with the sex questions is more of a metaphor/image to make you remember there is stuff out there, we'd like to keep private. It's not necessarily your main concern regarding google. Those are different things but way less graphic and more difficult to explain, so i went with this example instead.
  only matter if you are running for office or something
  You're close to the category of people i described last. You don't care for freedom. You don't care your attention is guided by other people. Information that is shown to you is gated by algorithms. And their power to manipulate you comes from the knowledge they have about you.
  no-one cares about their specific data
  Au contraire. Companies pay big money for data. The more specific, the more valuable. The biggest companies of today, like amazon, google, twitter, meta... Their business model is to collect data about you, sell advertisements, maybe even sell the data they've collected about you. And all of that is worth billions and billions of dollars. Why do you think they let you use TikTok or YouTube or something for free and the comany still makes millions? You're right. That's the cumulative sum. Your own data maybe is only worth 15$ to some company. Maybe more to some hacker if your credit card info gets leaked, too. But it doesn't make it any better if you're not the only one who gets exploited, but you're part of an exploited majority... The TikTok algorithm, the ads etc are specifically tailored to your personality. To influence specifically your attention.
  And what do you even tell the few people who actually suffer consequences? Like, i read stories about women being stalked with the help of social media. Sometimes even police officers using their computers to stalk ex partners. Their data gets collected in mass. And stored for legitimate reasons... Do you tell them: Bad luck you're being stalked by some scummy person? We the 99.9% of people don't have this specific problem?
  
  but the argument I have nothing to hide except bank account passwords etc is hard to argue with
  It's simple to argue against: any and all data points are either potential threat vectors, or will in aggregate paint a better picture of the individual they pertain to, for the data's possessor to use as they wish. A default-deny policy for data creation/access makes as much sense for individuals as it does workplaces.
- Pull out your phone, state "You're ok with this, right?! After all you have nothing to hide" and very overtly put it in voice recording mode.
  Then start asking the questions.

"How often do you and your wife fuck?"
- Yeah, that's a pretty strong line, plus you could keep going with ever more disturbing questions.

"Take your pants off and walk outside"

"Show me the man and I'll show you the crime" Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin's secret police chief bragged that he could prove criminal conduct on anyone, even the innocent.
Before Hitler, why wouldn't you put down you were Jewish.
You may have nothing to hide now. But who knows how it'll be used against you in the future. The less people know about you, the better.
- This is usually the approach I take. You "have nothing to hide" now doesnt mean you won't want to hide something considered normal or not a problem right now in the future. I'm sure many people if they could go back in time would remove pictures or comments from social media that were appropriate (or at least not a big problem at the time) that haunt them now.

Ask them: How much money do they have in their bank account? How often do they have sexual relations?
Data privacy? I have nothing to hide. Freedom of speech? I have nothing to say.
- I've seen dumb answers to this, "Google is fine because I don't care what they know, it's not going to affect my life"

"Okay, unlock your phone, open WhatsApp and hand it to me."

People who wear clothes automatically lose this argument.
Lock you house? Close your window blinds? Lock the door when you go to the bathroom?
Yep, you've things to hide.

I mean, if you have nothing to hide, then surely you don't need window blinds or a bedroom door? It should also mean that it's okay for guests to rifle through your closet and dresser drawers, right?

"Right on, so let me rifle through your nightstand"
- More like "Let me rifle through everything in your apartment, your email, browser history, passwords, social media messages, and then provide me the geolocation date for everywhere you go, along with your biometric data."
  The problem with your argument is it doesn't even showcase just how egregious the entire privacy invasion aspect is.

Realistically there isn't one. People dropping that argument are not interested in a dialectic.
It ultimately doesn't matter if you have nothing to hide. Some people do and have good, ethical, reason to. Universal privacy is the only way to ensure necessary privacy.

I have nothing to hide but I still don't want you watching me poop.
- Speak for yourself ┬┴┤( ͡⚆ل͜├┬┴┬

They don't choose what they need to hide, if their government outlaws woodworking tomorrow, then any carpenters today go from "having nothing to hide" to "I need to hide my entire career and hobby" overnight and in their sleep.
And then the government threatens Facebook to hand over messages from any user suspected of woodworking, and then they get persecuted and arrested
The government threatens Google to hand over all browser history from suspected woodworkers, Apple for all iCloud photos from suspected woodworkers, Amazon for all woodworking related purchases
It goes on
If the carpenter cared about privacy from the start, then the government just wouldn't be able to find them and arrest them for simply woodworking
But the carpenter didn't care about privacy, they "had nothing to hide" yesterday, so when that law goes into effect tomorrow the government will have a really easy time finding them

One very good point I heard once is this: You have nothing to hide NOW, but what if a government raises that somehow views you as a menace? What if you don't agree.
What if something that you can't change about yourself, say your religion, your sexual preference etc. This has happened before and is happening right now in some countries.
- Yeah I bring this up. We are installing the mechanisms for which some crazy future totalitarian government can exercise absolute control over the population.
  With the technology we have today, we can make 1984 a reality. In fact, Orwell would be surprised at just how effective we could be. We're even working on the mind reading at this point.
- When the child killer knocks on the door and asks where the kids are, you don't tell him the truth.

Nothing to hide until a person has something to hide. An attitude of "I don't have anything to hide" may catch up to a person. No one knows what the future holds. One day they might start tracking private information a person does not want tracked, for example financial or medical data. So better to put the fence up now than try to put it up during a stampede.
Personally I keep my data private with a reasonable amount of effort. I try to keep a small internet footprint and there's stuff I won't do for the sake of privacy. Going some years back the only social media I engaged in was Reddit until coming here to Lemmy. These are anonymous mediums. It blows my mind that so many people are willing to completely splay out their lives non-anonymously on social media.

Turn it on them. Ask them to give up something private in front of you like their phone or wallet. Hey, if they have nothing to hide then they shouldn't worry... But they will.

"Of course you do."
Do you want your mother to know how you dirty talk to your girlfriend, or what sort of porn you watch? do you want her watching you jerk off? Do you want your boss to know about that rash on your dick? Going further, do you think every pretty girl you walk up to should know about every dirty thought you have about them? Do you want that guy you hate at work to actually know exactly what you want to do to him?
Anyone who thinks they have nothing to hide aren't thinking hard enough.

Then I can place a camera and mic in your house and watch you all day ? No ?

- This is a very real possibility for pretty much every country in the world right now. Authoritarianism is on the rise
  
  It is the roaring 20s

I have done nothing illegal and nothing wrong, yet I have everything to hide.
I don't trust what judgements our governments 10 years from now wants to put on me, my family and my children based on my current loud political acceptance of trans rights, free abortion, and my express hatred of fascism.
- This literally happened with abortion rights. People put their health data unencrypted in apps, because they „had nothing to hide“. Then the law changed.
- I'm interested, would it be different if 10 years ago you were anti-LGBT, anti-abortion and fascist, but changed your mind? Would you consider others judging you for that now acceptable?
  It's a random thought, no deeper meaning or provocation.
  
  Oh, people could, and my friends would.
  People randomly judging me is a different worry than having an oppressive government or malign actors with documentation on my "problems".

There's a certain irony in the degree of privacy discussion and advocacy on the fediverse, where even your upvotes and downvotes are part of the public record.
That's, coupled with lackluster security vetting for server software and infrastructure across multiple instances means that invariably cross correlating your likes of furry porn with the email used in the account is going to happen in the future.
A lot of people are going to end up burned thinking that "non-corporate operation" = 'private.'
- I'm curious how many people actually think that, although it's unknowable of course.
  You're right in that a huge portion of people would certainly make that assumption.
  However, i would argue that the fediverse & open source in general is more "privacy respecting" because we can have a discussion about exactly what is disclosed and why it is disclosed.
  In practice, using the web without leaking information about our preferences is pretty much impossible. "Privacy" (on and off the web) is never about "no disclosure", it's always about what needs to be disclosed, why it needs to be disclosed, and whether I personally am comfortable disclosing in exchange for whatever service I am seeking.
- I has some degree of privacy. A better way to look at it is to say: It's less worst ! But full privacy is to shut down all your connected electric aplliances, never connect to the web, sell your house and go living of the grid.

"Having nothing to hide" sounds like worrying about getting in trouble from data. But you can also get yourself and others into trouble being tracked or manipulated without consent.
A big problem is that data does not usually go away (even of you erase or delete it or forgot you shared it).
Any data you reveal can build up over time. The more data available on you, the easier it is to triangulate, to find you specifically.
And patterns happen over time. More data on your habits makes it easier to predict what you do, easier to manipulate you. Not just with advertisements or insurance rates, I mean outright scams. For example, my grandfather got conned out of $5k by a scammer who could impersonate my cousin based on the cousin's facebook, linkedin, and public records.
We also have very little insight into how much data we generate. Especially online, we can't imagine the amount of logged activity and data generated. This makes it hard to meaningfully say "I don't have a problem with how somebody uses my data" because we can't even grasp the scale of the data and how it can be used.
I also second another poster who mentioned you don't have anything to hide now, but times change. You can't go back and protect data once it's used against you! I have firsthand experience with that in Texas, USA. I worked with a company that realized in July 2022 that they should NOT record if people were pregnant in a huge database. We didn't want to have data on a pregnancies that may not work out for whatever reason in Texas because it could be used against people.

My colleague gave me that response. I asked if I could go through his off-facebook activities for fun. "Sure, got nothing to hide" About 5 seconds in he could bare it and asked me to leave him alone. Lol

Just ask them for their phone. Don't say what for.

As the Cypherpunk Manifesto says:
Privacy is not secrecy. A private matter is something one doesn't want the whole world to know, but a secret matter is something one doesn't want anybody to know. Privacy is the power to selectively reveal oneself to the world.
... An anonymous transaction system is not a secret transaction system. An anonymous system empowers individuals to reveal their identity when desired and only when desired; this is the essence of privacy.
People can desire privacy for privacy's sake. Wanting privacy doesn't necessarily mean they're criminals who need anonymity or secrecy to cover up illegal/immoral acts; it just means they're human.
For an offline example, consider that you're a cis girl in a women's locker room. You know everyone knows you have certain body parts, and you have nothing to "hide" due to this, but you still don't want to be stared at as you peel off your swimsuit.

One I came across a while ago is simple - Curtains. We all close ourselves to the outside world.
- I like that comparison. It even allows you to explain that there are different levels of privacy.
  Leaving the curtains open at night, while you have a light on, really opens you up to the world. But then opening the curtains a smidge during the day to let the light in at least serves a purpose.