Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Privacy--the delicate balance
Cyberfriends, I've been thinking about privacy from an optimistic and pessimistic perspective. It's easy to see the problems with maintaining privacy online--identity theft, stalking, government surveillance, loss of control over what is private and what is public. But then there is Dana Boyd who reminds us that there are many positive virtues of visibility--discovering new friends, seeing people whose behvior is different from yours (as a way of learning), exercising compassion and empathy with those who are hurting--all of which she outlines in her article. So it poses the question to me: how do you balance the dangers and postive values of visibility? What is the line we should draw between hiding ourselves online with letting people see us?
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I love the positive and negative way you refer to privacy and visibility. I am going to start my blog on this topic. I didn't think about privacy any other way besides negative invasion of it...now i love the idea of visibility because I found many new friends when I got to college and even before...i found my roommate by simply looking through the Lehigh network and Class of 2011 group...so I would say I've used privacy/visibility to my advantage already. I need to start thinking about it in a better light and stop being so afraid of it.
ReplyDeleteI too found my freshman year roommate on the Lehigh network on Facebook. I think that the negative view of privacy mentioned in Dana Boyd's talk is how people argue about the right to privacy in public spaces. Everyone is worried about their pictures or personal information getting into the hands of the wrong person, yet less people think about the positive side of this. People are able to learn about different cultures and people that they would otherwise not be able to view. In addition, people are able to reach out to others in need, and offer help when there may otherwise not be anyone else.
ReplyDeletePrivacy online I believe has always been portrayed in a negative light. You need privacy to protect your identity from theft or from stalkers or from potential employees searching for anything they can tag you on. These are the kind of stories you hear on the news and read about, which is why the majority of the population views many things online as just a possible way for you to be "spied" on. Even personally, I havent really realized how much I use Facebook, etc. on the internet to find out about people (I also found my roommate before freshmen year) and just about different events around campus or the community that I could attend. The ability to be able to share yourself and your interests over the internet is something people should take more advantage of.
ReplyDeleteDr. Bob,
ReplyDeleteI like your use of “visibility.” This is definitely a more precise word than “privacy.” I like that visibility does not impose a bias. It is a passive word, not necessarily associated with risk or danger. When people are talking about their online “privacy,” they are reiterating an idea tied to negativity. “Are you sure those pictures are private?!”… “Will someone invade my privacy?!”…
These colloquial sayings keep us rooted in fear. We rarely walk the streets worrying that our pockets will be picked. Instead, we acknowledge the potential for crime to occur anywhere. We keep that in the back of our minds.
Likewise, online, I think that people should keep an eye out for deviants, and of course protect their secrets. But deep pessimism seems unwarranted. The Internet is not an amputation of the world; it is a worldly extension. We should treat it accordingly.