I find it amazing that you came up with the most one-sided argument you could think of ("not actively harming") and still didn't realize how badly it can misfire.

Here's a hint: my dentist is actively harming me when taking out a tooth.

> my dentist is actively harming me when taking out a tooth.

if that was true you wouldn't pay them to do it. They are causing you pain in the short term, yes. That's not the same as harm.

This comment is personal data about you, specifically your political views. It's now in my browser cache. If you were to ask me to clear it, I'd probably say no. Am I actively harming you?

I was actively harmed by kennywinker's idea I actually would like to seek restitution from him for expressing it because I don't know of a way for him to have it fully erased from my mind.

...or maybe I shouldn't have used this site if I didn't want to be exposed. This is going to end up being less exposure for the EU to things on the internet until someone figures out how to monetize them. If they cost money without somehow contributing something they will be actively excluded.

oh no! Parasitic corporations that provide little or negative value to society are going to make less money of off europeans!! What will they do!!!

I shared my political views publicly. I happened to also use a psuedo-anonymous account to do it. If I suspected my government was cracking down on vaguely anti libertarian-capitalist viewpoints I would probably ask hacker news to remove the extra metadata they might have on their machines that could be used to de-anonymize the comment.

I'm not too worried about your browser cache, but it could under the right circumstances give you some small power to harm me, yes.