Because everyone has stuff to hide. You dont have to have criminal activity, ongoing or in your past, to want to keep your privacy and keep things hidden. I always counter with "Okay, then lets paint your social security number on the side of your car if you have nothing to hide", and they always stammer and stutter about how thats different and that would cause them no end of headache if someone got it and stole their identity.

And yes, thats the point. You have stuff you want to protect and keep others from knowing. Not just for identity theft reasons, but for social reasons as well.. You probably don't want your spouse to know how much you hate their sibling for no reason, or want your boss to hear what you say about them at home, You dont want people at the bagel shop to know your bank account number and password, Or any of a thousand other things that you do every day, that you dont want other people to know about.

Who knows what will be worth hiding in the future. Something that is nothing to hide today might get you in serious trouble in the future.

Some really good arguments. But here's one from the Cyber Security side. We all know about the CIA, but do you know about the other CIA?

• Confidentiality -- Information that you store or transfer is only readable to those you designate.
• Integrity -- Information you store or transfer is only alterable by those you designate.
• Availability -- Information you store or transfer is available to those you designate when they need access to the data.

Confidentiality is the heart and soul of a functioning life. You do have stuff to hide, even if you say you don't. Do you want a rando to know your passwords? Do you want your wife to find out about your birthday gift to her before the big day? Do you want your nosy neighbour to start gossiping to the entire neighbourhood about what you and your wife did on her big day? Do you want that big secret plan that will make you the next Mark Zuckerberg be found out by the real Zuckerberg and now he's rich and you're not? All of these are things that aren't illegal, yet are still private information that someone like you might want to make confidential.

And this isn't even the tip of the iceberg. Sure, you might argue, you shouldn't be posting your plans for the Zuck-killer on Facebook, but your actual words are not the only thing Facebook stores and analyses. They know a lot about you. What you liked. What you commented on. What you searched for. What you looked at. They know things about you that you never ever said. For instance, even if you never said "I'm a {Democrat|Republican}" in so many words, or even if you don't share overtly political posts, they still know your ideologies and are willing to sell this information to everyone and sundry. Facebook is even building profiles on people who never created accounts on Facebook. Imagine being {Republican|Democrat} and working for a {Democrat|Republican} boss. You've worked hard to keep politics out of the workplace, because while there may be anti-discrimination laws if you're a woman or a minority, having an unpopular political opinion is not protected in as many places, so you could easily lose your job if Facebook discloses to your boss that you've not got the right political views.

If Confidentiality really was not an issue and everyone could live open lives without consequence, we'd be talking about the IAs of security, not the CIAs. That we are talking CIAs shows that yes, there actually IS a need for secrecy, and we actually DO have things to hide, even if we don't moonlight as murderers, cat-burglars, or strippers.

PS: I don't believe you have never had it explained to you why 'I have nothing to hide" is a bad argument.

PPS: Very strong sea lioning vibes here.

PPPS: Seems like this nonsense started cropping up on Reddit when it became clear the protests were having an effect. And now it's here. So much dishonest debate tactics being thrown around the whole "we want an alternative to the creepily intrusive policies of main-stream social media" debate. I wonder why?