When Did You First Realize the Importance of Online Privacy?

I have always been careful online, I always cleaned up when leaving a place as much as possible. I tended to use my real details (a mistake) and then just change them before I left. I later realised this was unlikely to hide who I was, due to IP etc, logging.

Places like Facebook, I have never really embraced it, I had an account when I was in school, but never used it, just had a profile, I closed that down years ago. All my other accounts are also gone now, Youtube, Google, Linkedin, Microsoft, did not trust them.

I have an Apple account and a Protonmail account. That's it. I do use iCloud and Apple mail, as I figured there was not much anyone could learn from the content, it's just family photos, and mail wise, it's emails from the bank. I concern more about airing political views, having opinion on anything, that sort of thing, it's very sad one had to think this way, but if you don't, the repercussions at a later date could be bad. I'd rather appear to be a blank book who obeys, then an open book that could be manipulated. Hey, I'm a nobody, nobody cares what I think, but what happens if a facist gets in 20 years from now.

/r/privacy Thread Link - eff.org