this post was submitted on 19 Aug 2024
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Hi all,

I don’t really know how to ask this question. On one of my devices, I downloaded a web browser (Opera) and one of my friends made fun of me, saying that “you better like China knowing all the stuff you do online”.

I read the Opera website and it says it’s a Norwegian company, but on Wikipedia it does say it was bought by a Chinese company.

My question is: what does “China” do with my personal browsing data? Why is it useful for them? (and who are we referring to here, is that the Chinese government, a private company, who?)

I’m looking forward to learn more about digital privacy, but I don’t currently understand the “obviousness” of how it is wrong to use Opera.

I’m a tech enthusiast (hence why I’m here), but I’m cognizant that I have large knowledge gaps in some of these topics.

Thank you in advance.

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[–] Cryophilia@lemmy.world 89 points 3 weeks ago (18 children)

China has state-coordinated schemes to both suppress its own internal population (which may not concern you if you aren't Chinese and never go to China) and to manipulate people globally (which everyone should be concerned about).

While it's true that all countries collect data for the purposes of propaganda, China does so at a scale and with a level of precision and control that pretty much no other country can reach.

You should be trying to limit the amount of data that ANY group gets about you, but some groups will do more nefarious things with it than others. Google for example just wants to advertise to you. Which is bad, I'm not trying to downplay that, just contextualize it. China wants to control every aspect of everything you do. China's capacity to control people outside its own borders is limited, but growing. The more data China gets, the more leverage it has to manipulate, coerce, and control.

[–] ArbiterXero@lemmy.world 36 points 3 weeks ago

We are all too easy to manipulate.

The more data they have on us, the easier it is.

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