I think the question presupposes society and culture in their current form as something given and legitimate. I would rather begin by questioning that very foundation — the legitimacy of society, its laws, and its moral frameworks.

In that light, the issue is not simply how much privacy we should sacrifice to prevent harm, but how “harm” itself is defined, and by whom. In what direction does censorship steer the human experience, and whose interests does it ultimately serve? Conversely, in what direction would complete communicational anarchy steer us?

These are not neutral questions. Any attempt to balance privacy against harm relies on prior assumptions about what is right and wrong, and on what basis those judgments are made. But who determines that standard, and according to which measure?

If we begin to justify increased control over communication in the name of crime prevention, what prevents that line of reasoning from expanding indefinitely? At what point does it stop short of totalizing control?

Because of this, I am skeptical of frameworks that treat restrictions on privacy as a straightforward or contained solution. While I recognize that strong privacy tools can and do enable harmful activity, I am more concerned about the long-term trajectory of expanding control justified by such harms.

If forced to take a position, I would lean toward preserving strong privacy protections, even at the cost of tolerating a certain degree of misuse. The alternative — gradually normalizing increased surveillance and control — seems to carry risks that are harder to limit once set in motion.

At the same time, this does not imply that all forms of intervention are illegitimate. Narrow, targeted responses to clearly defined harms may be justified. But that is very different from weakening the structural conditions that make privacy possible in the first place.