TL;DR - I respectfully disagree.

> Privacy is unfair because it highlights characteristics that are difficult to conceal.

The idea that privacy highlights characteristics that are difficult to conceal is possibly truthful, but it's a bit far-fetched, at least when making a case against something (privacy) and alleging that is causes damage (unfairness due to highlighting characteristics...). If privacy is guilty of this crime, then everything is unfair for all sorts of reasons. Some people being tall is unfair because it highlights others' feelings of being short. Some people being more attractive than others is unfair because is causes other people to feel badly about themselves.

None of these "causations" would lead you to believe we should actively try to "equalize" people across all those spectrums, right? That would cause (much) more damage than good. Have you read the Handicapper General? Kurt Vonnegut illustrates this idea.

Therefore, your catchy causation is not a good reason to recommend active destruction of existent privacy.

> Rather than coming up with strategies to help people hide aspects of themselves, such as lying, we should help people to be more tolerant and understanding.

Wow, that's a pretty broad, meta-level prescription there. I have a couple reservations about it:

1. There's no reason to assume it's an either-or game.

Helping people have privacy ("helping people hide aspects of themselves") is not at odds with helping people be tolerant and understanding. In fact, wouldn't "wanting/maintaining privacy" be an example of such a characteristic that distinguishes people, that some people may feel it desirable to conceal due to people being intolerant or not understanding, and that therefore you just recommended people should be more tolerant/understanding of? Or does your proposed implementation of "helping people to be more tolerant and understanding" include an implied whitelist of only certain approved "characteristics" that should be protected this way, and "wanting/maintaining privacy" isn't on the list? I see possible issues with this approach too.

2. Regarding being more tolerant and understanding...

I think it's much easier to treat people this way if you feel more-or-less content in your own life. Otherwise it's easy to let bitterness and resentment steer you into intolerant / non-understanding narratives and mindsets; it's easy to make up stories that justify your bitter feelings about others, and these stories often hinge on assumptions we make against people based on stereotypes or generalizations.

Yet there's no evidence that taking away people's privacy helps them achieve this contentment in their lives. What are examples of places where people have no privacy in their lives? Prisons? North Korea? Where does our idea come from that "total transparency" is guaranteed (or even likely) to unfold in some perfectly equal way that brings fairness, tolerance and understanding?

The internet is already filled with angry people who are sincerely enraged by reading about one another's "unacceptable" differences and experiencing cognitive dissonance about how different other people are; it is too easy for people to enter one another's personal mind spaces, and it's causing intolerance and misunderstanding. So what is your idea - we just do more of it and people will become tolerant and understanding? I don't see any evidence that that's the case.