June 16, 2006
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I had a bit of an eye opener this week. This is something that everybody is aware of unless you just flew in from Mars; things that one writes and posts on the web really are open to total public scrutiny. If you don’t want everyone or anyone under any circustance, either present or future, to read what you’ve written, then you better not post it on the web. I was half listening to a story on the radio this week; I don’t remember exactly what the story was about but, it had something to do with a soldier who I think died in Iraq. In the story the soldier’s widow was quoted on some things she wrote on a blog or bulletin board. It may not have been an issue for her, the fact that this was now being broadcast over the radio waves. This wasn’t clear from what I heard of the story, but the content sounded to me as if it was something that was written for a small, select audience of confidants. One part was something to the effect of, “…wait ’till he get’s home with that sweet ass of his and we’ll make more babies…”. It struck me like a ton of bricks; The reporter who created this story was probably able, via some simple search techniques, to come up with some obscure postings by this “everyday” person and felt ethically sanctified and journalistically obliged to include them as part of her radio story. I think what happened with me on hearing this was that it got me over the hump of thinking that all of the warnings coming from various sources were derived from a rampant big-brother paranoia.
The internet is an amazing and wonderful tool on one hand. But, on the other hand is a media the likes of which we have never known. It will take time before social, moral, ethical and legal norms evolve that allow us embed this tool as part of our lives while minimizing its capability to control and even catastrophically change our lives. For those of us who are a little slow on the up-take, a little bit of paranoia my be a good thing.
Comments (3)
I think about that sometimes. –should be writing all this stuff here? — should I post pictures of my children here? I agree that a little paranoia is good.
A good point, underscored for me recently when a collegue who does not read my blog and doesn’t know its name (but does know that I blog) said: “Oh, I BET I could find you within a few minutes on Google!”
I’m not so sure he’d win his bet (having Googled myself a few times in a few different ways and found no direct first-page link from my full name to my main blog) but I do agree that a concerted effort by a reporter-type could unearth most of what anyone put on the Internet.
However, I think the fact that the net is becoming so ubiquitous a forum also makes it much more anonymous — or ‘safe,’ if I can put it that way. If a certain significant percentage of the world’s 6.5 billion people have a web presence — how likely is it that you, or I, or anyone and their personal revelations, will be the next victim of a net criminal — or a sharp-eyed reporter? No more likely, I’d argue, than we are to fall victim to crime or publicity (or both) in the course of our normal real-world lives. Which doesn’t make it UNlikely, admittedly, nor does it mean we should relax vigilance. But it does mean that the more folks out there who instantly recognize the word ‘blog,’ and furthermore probably have one themselves, the less likely that providing a personal revelation or posting a picture is a notable event for the unsavory or unwelcome viewer.
I’m a firm believer in the proposition that if you decide to post something on the Internet, don’t do it unless you’re willing to have it on the front page of the New York Times.
Being an open person who shares (almost) everything, I post what I feel like, because I don’t care who knows my business. Occasionally, I’ll put up a “protected” post, but the same advisory holds, because I have no guarantee that a trusted subscribee might turn out to be evil.
Thing is, people who are nervous about their privacy give up an awful lot, whether they realize it or not. I prefer not to be that way.