December 20, 2025
Hide-and-seek with sirens
The Deviancy Signal: Having "Nothing to Hide" Is a Threat to Us All
Comment wars: “Nothing to hide” crowd roasted, skeptics blame Big Tech, calls to expose politicians
TLDR: A viral essay warns that “nothing to hide” creates a “Deviancy Signal,” making sudden privacy look suspicious. The comments split: some condemn the open‑book crowd, others blame Big Tech, and many demand radical transparency for politicians—proof that the privacy fight touches everyone.
An incendiary essay argues the “nothing to hide” attitude builds a trap: when open‑book folks finally grab privacy tools, it lights up a Deviancy Signal—basically a big red flag to watchers. The internet didn’t just react—it erupted. Privacy hardliners cheered the alarm, while skeptics rolled their eyes at the doom. Read the essay.
The spiciest take came from NickForLiberty, who blasted the “nothing to hide” crowd as collaborators aiding surveillance. Then jokoon swung back: forget spooky algorithms—courts and legitimate government matter, and it’s Big Tech doing most of the snooping. Animats tossed in political shade, claiming the author’s gubernatorial run isn’t serious, turning the thread into a side quest in campaign snark.
Some flipped the script entirely. general1465 demanded radical transparency for politicians—“open your inbox if you’ve got nothing to hide”—earning thunderous upvotes and a few nervous chuckles. Meme lords renamed it the Deviancy Bat‑Signal, posting “VPN starter pack” jokes and “encrypt your grandma” riffs. One commenter even insisted they’d still have “nothing to hide” if the rules suddenly changed, triggering collective facepalms.
For non‑nerds: an encrypted messenger is a locked letter, and a VPN is a private tunnel online. The core clash: should everyday privacy be the norm so using it isn’t suspicious—or is this overblown drama while tech companies hoover data? Either way, the comment section turned privacy into primetime entertainment.
Key Points
- •The article argues that the “nothing to hide” mindset builds a baseline of normalcy used by surveillance systems.
- •It introduces the “Deviancy Signal,” where sudden use of privacy tools appears suspicious against a history of transparency.
- •Routine digital behaviors like unencrypted texts, searches, and location tags contribute to surveillance profiling.
- •Interactions with non-private communications can undermine others’ operational security by linking them to monitored logs.
- •The article advocates making privacy and encryption universal defaults to dilute signals and frustrate surveillance comparisons.