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I Have Nothing but Red Herring to Hide

This post was last edited 1 month, 1 week ago.

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The term red herring is a figure of speech that we use to refer to an argument or plot device that creates a distraction from the real issue.

Herrings aren't naturally red, but when are cured or smoked for consumption, they can take on a reddish colour. Smoked or cured herring is also very pungent, and this is allegedly the reason why we use the term today. An early 19th Century English political journalist referred to incorrect news reporting being like a red herring drawn across the escape route of a hare, in order to throw the hunting dogs off the trail.1

As a plot device, red herrings are common in stories and films. For example, in the original Star Wars trilogy, we are led to believe that there is potential for romance between Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia, but that is a total red herring, as we find out later on.

In arguments, the term red herring is used to flag arguments that sound relevant to the discussion but are in fact not. A bad argument like that is called a logical fallacy, meaning it doesn't make any sense if you think about it carefully. A red herring is a logical fallacy that takes us off the trail leading towards the truth.

It's important to understand that the use of red herrings can be completely unintentional.

Reason it out by writing it out

Deductive reasoning means that if statements leading up to the conclusion are all true then the conclusion has to be true too. It can be worthwhile to write out arguments in this way.

For example, we can argue that humans are animals like this:

  1. All primates are animals
  2. I am a primate
    ∴ I am an animal

where the symbol ∴ means therefore.

Here is famous example of deductive reasoning about our mortality:

  1. All humans die, eventually
  2. I am a human
    ∴ I will die, eventually

Let's look at one more example:

  1. Freedom is important to all humans
  2. I am human
    ∴ Freedom is important to me

This is a statement that sounds plausible, but it's a claim that can't be made, because we cannot read minds. The first premise says "Freedom is important to all humans", but, to be honest, I don't know if that is really true.

Even though the conclusion rings true, there's a problem with one of the premises leading to the conclusion, makes the whole argument not sound.

I don't mind surveillance, because I've got nothing to hide

In discussions about mass data collection and digital surveillance, people often respond with "but I have nothing to hide...," as a way of saying that mass surveillance is acceptable to them.

Pro-privacy advocates are constantly breaking their heads on how to respond to this. The New Oil recently published a good blog post addressing some of the issues with saying that you have nothing to hide.

However, here I want to show that the I-have-nothing-to-hide argument is a red herring. It's a statement that is related to the general topic of surveillance, but not necessarily relevant to to arguments about digital privacy.

Best versions of the I-have-nothing-to-hide argument

Often when you tell someone that we should worry about Big Tech companies or governments scanning and recording private data about us, people shrug and say "I have nothing to hide," implying they are not worried about large scale surveillance.

Here's the argument written out:

  1. If you have something to hide, then digital mass surveillance can negatively affect you
  2. I have nothing to hide
    ∴ I am not negatively affected by digital mass surveillance

Or

  1. People who have something to hide have reason to worry about digital mass surveillance
  2. I have nothing to hide
    ∴ I have no reason to worry about digital mass surveillance

When I presented these to my philosopher friend M., he showed me this argument:

  1. When it rains, the streets get wet
  2. The streets are not wet
    ∴ It is not raining

This is a sound argument. The first statement is a conditional statement. "When it rains" is the condition, and the second half of that sentences, "the streets get wet," is the result we see if that condition is met.

In logic, it is acceptable to either affirm the condition (i.e., "It is raining") or deny the result of the condition (i.e., "The streets are not wet).

However, it is not OK to do the opposite, namely deny the condition ("It is not raining") or affirm the result ("the streets are wet"), as then you'll get strange arguments like this:

  1. When it rains, the streets get wet
  2. It is not raining
    ∴ The streets are not wet

This is a flawed conclusion, because other factors, like a broken fire hydrant, can also make the streets wet. Similarly, there is this:

  1. When it rains, the streets get wet
  2. The streets are wet
    ∴ It is raining

which shows another version of the same blind spot, namely that other factors can make streets wet.

If we now go revisit the I-have-nothing-to-hide argument, we can see that the same thing is happening as in the bad rain arguments:

  1. If you have something to hide, then digital mass surveillance can negatively affect you
  2. I have nothing to hide
    ∴ I am not negatively affected by digital mass surveillance

The second premise "I have nothing to hide" denies the condition "If you have something to hide".

The flaw here is that that you are not necessarily off the hook just because you have nothing to hide. There could be other reasons why digital mass surveillance might affect you negatively

So that takes care of the argument "I have nothing to hide." Saying "I have nothing to hide" as a response to concerns about digital surveillance only addresses one way that digital can negatively affect people. Even if you really had nothing to hide, surveillance can still have a negative affect on you in other ways. Your fully transparent life doesn't immunise you from the many other bad things that come with surveillance, such as, for example, your statements or photos made 20 years ago being used against you in a current, different political climate.

So thank you, M., for your helpful insights!

However, we are not done yet, because I started this blog by saying that the "I have nothing to hide" response is a red herring, meaning it has little to do with what the argument is really about. So in the final section, I'd like to show the true digital privacy argument.

The simple privacy argument

  1. My private information can be shared
  2. My private information belongs to me by definition
    ∴ It should be me who decides whether or not to share my private information with others

This doesn't ignore that governments may need to use their power take private information from you, for example, when you are a suspected of a crime. In good governance there should be deterrents in place, such as warrants, to avoid governments abusing their power.

Governmental power and individual privacy is tricky. It gets tricker when governments use corporate surveillance tools, as has been extensively covered by 404Media in their recent reporting of Flock's license plate reader cameras.

However, when it comes to corporate surveillance by Google, Meta, Amazon and others, it is clear that whether you have something to hide or not has little to do with who should get to decide about sharing (or taking) that private information.

You do. Even if you don't have anything to hide.

Updates

After publication, philosopher M. pointed out some flaws in my own 'simple privacy argument'. A stronger version would be this:

  1. My private information belongs to me.
  2. If something belongs to me, it should be me who decides whether or not to share it with others. ∴ It should be me who decides whether or not to share my private information with others.

Thanks again, M., for your valuable feedback!

Documentation

Red Herring Wikipedia entry

3 Reasons Why Everyone Has Something to Hide

404Media's reporting on Flock cameras

In picking apart these arguments, I got stuck and confused several times, but this article, and this sentence in particular, helped me stay on the right track:

The valid forms can be summarized as affirming the antecedent, or denying the consequent. The invalid forms are called traditionally "denying the an-tecedent" and "affirming the consequent."

Source: Digital Text International

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  1. There is a detailed and interesting discussion contesting the relationship between herring and hunting on the Wikipedia page about the term red herring.↩

#I-have-nothing-to-hide #arguments #digitalprivacy #logic #other #red-herring