Digital idiots like me aren’t so surprised we’re being spied on

I’m such an idiot. A dolt, a dullard, an imbecile, a cretin, yes, of course. But more specifically, an idiot.

Idiot is derived from the Greek “idiōtēs”, meaning a layman, a person lacking in professional skill, a self-centred citizen as opposed to someone who takes part in public matters. In ancient Athens, not taking part in governing the city was seen as dishonourable, and it is from this perception that “idiot” became a generalised slur. But some forms of idiocy look smart this week, digital idiocy in particular.

On Monday, following the revelations about Cambridge Analytica “harvesting” data, Facebook lost 6.77 per cent of its market value and Mark Zuckerberg personally took a hit of $5.5 billion, although that wasn’t enough to prompt him to make an appearance. He’s doubtless confident that few of Facebook’s 2.2 billion users will turn against it.

Hundreds of thousands of Facebook users were paid to take part in a personality test and have their data collected, through an app called “thisisyourdigitallife”. The app secretly collected the data of users’ Facebook friends too, none of whom would have known that their data had been “harvested” — a lying term, hinting at farming and honest toil, rather than stealing.

Data was used for “psychographic targeting” of political ads — or, as whistleblower Christopher Wylie put it, for “Steve Bannon’s psychological warfare mindf**k tool”, manipulating voters by playing on their fears and desires.

#DeleteFacebook has gathered pace on Twitter — and advice has appeared everywhere about how to extricate yourself from it.

What puzzles me is how anyone thought if they put their private life online it would stay private? I wrote about Facebook just once, in this paper, in June 2007, nine months after it went public. To do so, I joined up and experimentally added one friend, my partner — but, appalled by the realisation of what Facebook would ultimately mean for anyone with any sense of privacy, I’ve had nothing to do with it ever again.

So I am the walrus. I am the original digital idiot. But I can’t be idiotically complacent, since the campaigning group Privacy International warns that nearly all other apps routinely spy on users too. Not that I really get what an app is either. Being such an idiot.

Rhinos and bears and a River Cottage

Last Friday, pre-empting the freeze, we zipped up to Whipsnade Zoo, having not visited for years. We’ve been regulars at London Zoo with our tot and feel qualms about the confinement of some animals, however well run the Zoological Society of London may be. But Whipsnade stirs no such misgivings, being beautiful and spacious. Laurie goggled at his first elephants, rhinos and bears then we found the former “Lookout Café” has been re-opened as a River Cottage Kitchen. Such a treat. Should the sun shine again.

I’ve finally joined the puffer jacket club

Having all my adult life snootily spent more than I could afford on proper winter coats, not all of them particularly toasty, I’ve been converted to hi-tech quilted down jackets — along with almost everyone else in London, it seems.

They are cheap (£59.90 from Uniqlo) and warm. If not especially stylish, or interesting — if you are such a sausage as to want your clothes to be interesting —they are pleasantly anonymous at least, being so ubiquitous lately.

And as everybody else has known much longer than me they are secretly luxurious, a sensuous delight, simply by virtue of being feather-light. Gravity is the enemy as we age.

To wear a jacket that keeps you warm but weighs apparently less than nothing is a little exhilaration in itself. Especially instructive for those who, like me, doubt progress otherwise.

Foy’s talent spreads well beyond royalty

Claire Foy was so regal in The Crown that majesty looked like being her life sentence as an actress. Her transformation in Unsane will free her from such penal servitude. In this psychological horror set in an asylum, she plays a woman battling both her fears and a stalker. In gritty hospital scenes she’s more like Uma Thurman in Kill Bill than a princess. Filmed on an iPhone for just $1.2m, Unsane focuses tightly on her.

Foy’s next stop? As Lisbeth Salander in The Girl in the Spider’s Web. Even nuttier, then.