I am concerned about privacy. It’s a first for me really. I’ve generally been discreet in my lifetime about other peoples’ secret confessions. I know what sort of information, when shared, should not be further passed on. Regarding my own sordid details, I’ve never been particularly worried. After all, who would really want to know about that stolen street sign that occupied my closet for years? There are much better things for law enforcement to do than track down a marginal offender. The paperwork alone would cost the city more than just replacing the sign (which is long gone by the way, so City of Jamestown PD should not bother to come looking for it).
Anyhow, my paranoid vs. carefree internal scale is becoming seriously off balance. Nothing earth-shatteringly horrible has happened to me personally (probably because I'm kind of boring), but there are plenty of examples of people being fired for a Facebook comment, spouses learning their partners are not as monogamous as they thought and adolescent-style arguments on the "walls" of the web sites of adults. And is there a social networking site or a technological device that HASN’T had a glitch that exposed private data?
No matter what point of view you possess on any singular topic, this is very alarming when considered collectively. How many of us are present in Youtube clips and don’t even know it? Are there satellite images of us picking our noses while driving? Who is collecting all this data anyway?
As much as I hate the idea of the invasion of my privacy, I have to admit I have been a willing conspirator in the dissemination of my own information. I use Facebook and my profile is not private. I am registered to use dozens of web sites, many of which I’m sure I’ve forgotten exist. I have helped all of these outlets collect my private information then I get irritated they use it. The biggest entity I have to blame for the invasion of my privacy is…me? That can’t be right!
In owning up to myself, I have a couple excuses.
1) It’s just too darn easy to share. Each comment I make, each picture I take is just an upload away (sounds like a song, doesn’t it?).
2) I get carried away with really neat-o stuff. See a cute little push-pin map of every location you’ve ever visited on this planet then display it on your home page. Whee! Fun!
Internet communications move so fast, we just don’t stop to think how quickly and where our information is going. Your data is seen real-time as you post it. You can delete it, but someone has likely seen it already. We type before thinking now and consider it casual conversation.
There are certainly more unobtrusive and more serious invasions of our privacy. We are on camera unknowingly for a large proportion of our lives as we work, as we drive, even as we relax with friends at a restaurant. Some of us are watched and listened to in our own homes whether by accident or design. We are violated by others even as we violate ourselves.
There’s not much we can do day-to-day about governments, businesses or other individuals intruding. That doesn’t make it right or allowable. I’m just saying maybe we should start with making ourselves less accessible to begin with. Well, then, I’m off to delete that Facebook profile just as soon as I publish my opinion in the form of a blog in the most public forum ever imagined. Who am I kidding?
Sincerely part of the problem,
Paminski
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Tier Four - Relatives
ReplyDeleteFamily birthdays, outings, and holiday celebrations can be posted here, along with subtle jabs about poor parenting and disappointing children.
Tier Five - Potential and existing employers ( this Tier remains hidden from everyone else ) - You can go to town
on this Tier promoting everything you've ever done that is great and right, and no one who knows better will contradict you.
Tier Six - General Acquaintances
90% of Social Media blather would be posted on this tier. Pictures of cats, messages saying "I'm at such and such restaurant", and most trivial and slighly interesting things can be directed towards the people you barely know. Also, people in this tier might get really ticked off they aren't in Tier Three.
Tier Sev.....Hey, wait a minute...
This is awfully complicated, and more than a little silly.
Maybe some personal accountability in regard to social media merits consideration, too. My parents used to urge me to "Think before you speak". This is good advice, but a bit outdated. "Think before you speak/post/tweet" seems much more appropriate in modern times. If you don't, you invite yourself to cross a minefield of prejudice and oversensitivity that is difficult to emerge from unscathed, on top of exposing your personal information to abuse and exploitation.
In other words, a very long winded "I agree" :)
An interesting and well-written post...Individuals should exercise discretion in electing what information to share with companies and in public forums. It seems that
ReplyDeletewe retain a sense of anonymity when using an electronic device to communicate information
or ideas as if the digital layer between us renders everything casual. In fact, it does
the opposite by putting everything on open display in an easily archived format. Employing
sensibility when queried for data would resolve many transgressions of privacy
(If www.datawhore.com requires your social security number to play their eye catching
3d Tic Tac Toe, should we really be forking that information over?)
Regarding social media, it can
be more difficult to assess which information is appropriate to share with different groups of people. (Nearly everyone I see on Facebook has hundreds of friends) Therefore, I suggest sites like Facebook develop a multi-tiered privacy system so we can direct messages to the proper audience. Let's create some categories for the people in our social media networks so we can assign them different levels of access to our formerly public rantings:
Note : The way this works is that you would designate each message post as corresponding
ReplyDeleteto a tier. You would also place each of your friends said Tiers as you added them, allowing
for each Tier to receive a certain level of access to your posts. Each tier is progressively less important socially and only views messages of the tiers at or
below it ...
Tier One - Mistresses, whatever the male equivalent of "mistresses" is, and narcotics distributors -
These communications should be the most discrete, so they are awarded the highest level of privacy. Keeping the dope deals and steaming affairs private from the rest of the world can save you a lot
of headaches.
Tier Two - Spouses
If you want to post lovey dovey sap to your significant other, guilt trip them with vague messages about how unhappy you are, or just talk about what you are having for dinner.....that doesn't need to
be known to everyone. Keep it to yourselves and the Tier One folks.
Tier Three - Friends
Make plans with your buddies or poke fun at your relatives or more casual peers......they'll
never know, and they won't show up at your outings either. (Although your drug dealer,
spouse, or mistress might. This could be a flaw in the system.)
Sorry I posted this really mega long response to your blog because privacy is a touchy issue with me without realizing the constraints on content volume. I hope that even though its posted out of order it still makes some reasonable degree of sense ( Hell, posting it out of order might aid me in my quest to be coherent)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment(s)! I really like the idea of the tiered system. It doesn't seem that complicated from a programming standpoint either. At least on Facebook, there is already the capability to designate lists of friends. I have used this myself to remind me how I know certain people. Work friend, online gaming friend, family, etc... Each friend can even belong to more than one list. One more tiny step would be a way to adjust permissions for each of those lists.
ReplyDeleteWow, these Facebook guys don't waste anytime: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/hotsites/2010-10-06-facebook_N.htm . There's no doubt this blog was the sole catalyst for the improvements.
ReplyDeleteGood post and interesting replies. If we have a tier system would anyone be able to see that we have 14 members in the mistress category? Maybe after tier three or so the main page wouldn't say how many "friends" belong to the category. You also wouldn't want your drug provider or mistress to accidentally post in your lower tiers, those folks need to be on a pretty short leash.
ReplyDelete