It's the fact that online my data isn't ephemeral and someone COULD watch in the future, if they care - or deploy someTHING to do their watching for them - and I'm unsure of what will be cared about by "the powers that be" in the future. I'm sure someone could dig up my embarrassing ideas about music and religion from 30 years ago on usenet. But people probably don't care enough, and that data may or may not still be available. And there wasn't a ton of political discussion - and certainly nothing about (now) current politicians.
But right now, if I say "A sucks", it's probably saved online forever, and depending on where I say it, it's easily available to LLM-derived bots. Including to those currently tearing down civilization who might have taken a bribe from "A" without my knowledge to punish anyone who dislikes them - or who take a bribe from "A" in the future.
And "LLM agents" will be deployed to scour the 'net for such sentiments, find those who they can easily connect to a real identity, and possibly punish them retroactively.
At this point, I'm keeping my head "down" 100x more than I did just 6 months ago. Heck, I worry if even this post is too much and I'll regret it later.
I used to go online as a kid to "escape a not-so-great reality" (geek/nerd, not a great athlete, not popular, etc). These days, I long to "disconnect" to escape. But I'm a software guy, and if I get off the "keep up with the latest tech" treadmill too long, I risk losing my livelihood..
I don't mean that in any abstract or airy-fair way either, just matter-of-factly. It's a major cultural change. Kids often have no lived experience of privacy - privacy sometimes simply means social non-existence for them, and is thus deemed a non-option.
It's playing out in many areas now, as we've lots of people who lived before the internet, and at the same time, loads of human beings who only know a world of constant surveillance, a world of views = value, a world of constantly caressing your phone, pawing at it at every available opportunity. A world of quiet buses, people getting dressed up for their phone and pretending to go on a night out but never leaving their bedroom, other people at home in their bedroom on their phones liking that "story", etc etc.
This one minute Youtube short, gives an example of a guy dancing, without regard to being watched. And how a large internet crowd reacted to him being shamed by others at the dance.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/n2rtYzzSgL0
I think we tend to focus on the negative effects of constant surveillance, without giving a nod to the positive once in a while.