Day Two: The Leak - BX

You wake up one day and discover that a searchable database of all private messages sent in the past 5 years on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tinder, Google Chat and many other social platforms has been leaked online. It is being shared, downloaded, re-uploaded and replicated faster than anyone can block or delete it.

  • What actions do you take in the first five minutes after hearing this news?
    Yikes. This would be terrible. I guess the first thing I would do is make a list of folks who I would need to apologise to and get to apologising. I'd also have to apologise to my parents (and warn them) cause there would definitely be some NSFW content in there. Finally, block new people on everything.
  • How do you feel?
    Violated. I guess I always know that something like this could happen, but some part of me trusts that it won't. Terrified of the fallout.
  • What possible explanations do you come up with for what’s going on? Who is responsible for the leak, and why?
    I'd probably blame the corporate machinery - mined too much data, and then were lax about protecting it. It would potentially be hand-in-glove with some deliberately lax government oversight.
  • What do you predict other people might do when they discover the same thing?
    People would be disavowing their private selves. It would be chaos as all the lies, the secret gossip, the drama becomes public. They'd claim that their accounts weren't real. They'd shut down all social media.
  • What’s one real action you could take in the new few days or weeks to feel more prepared for the first five minutes of this scenario, if it were really to happen?
    Stop committing to image and text the things that I actually want to keep secret. This includes card info, gossip, and nudes.

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