Slashdot Mirror
Social Network Users Have Ruined Their Privacy
Steve Kerrison writes "'There's little point in worrying about ID cards, RFID tags and spyware when more and more people are throwing away their privacy anyway. And the potential consequences are dire.' I've written an article on the dangers of social networks and how many users seem to forget just how public the information they post can be. This follows a warning sent out by the CS department of Bristol University, advising students that they risk lost job opportunities, getting in trouble with their parents and more, if they don't take care. The warning, however, really applies to all social network users, be they college students or over-zealous blog posters."
Erosion of privacy is when personal details about your life are taken from you. It's when police chiefs talk about tapping everyones home or looking up library records without a warrant. If I willfully give away information about myself then I never did consider it very private then, did I? This crap about lost opportunities, while perhaps partially true in today's freakishly religious climate, will not be such an issue as these things become more common. This is absolute proof that the minority voice controls the world. Damn near everyone has to lie about who they are because they're afraid everyone else lives some higher "moral" standard and will look down on them. This is simply not true. Even the noisy types who push this false sense of morality on us hardly practice what they preach. As a global community develops and communication with the entire world becomes simple and cheap the world will shift as knowledge becomes free. You will no longer have to worry about losing your job because there is a picture of you with a joint on someones myspace page or your hair is dyed neon blue. The transition period will not be smooth, but I welcome the day. All this article does is beg us to continue living in fear of some invisible and nonexistent moral majority. I, for one, refuse.
It is already happening. The company I work for was founded by two young entrepreneurs that grew up in the age where knowledge was free and they learned that masturbation won't cause hair to grow on your hands or your dick to fall off. They learned that the D.A.R.E. cop that told them the story of the young man who died from ONE hit from a joint was LYING. They realized that nobody else they grew up with believed this horseshit anymore either. They only care about your skill and your work ethic. As the younger generations start to take back this world it will become a better place to live because of the global community and available, simple worldwide communication.
Do not fear it. Embrace it.
That's true - unless social networking is being set up as a sort of honey trap encouraging people to compromise their futures. Hence, I would not stress this difference as a dichotomy - but rather as two moments of the same phenomenon.
People are giving away their freedom within a now-corporate framework that encourages this kind of activity. Just remember that.
As with fidelity/client cards, purchase-rewards, and fast-tracking at airports, the web 2.0 is training us to surrender our personal lives for the most meager of rewards. This kind of surrender almost seems propaedeutic for a greater, involuntary loss of privacy. But then again, Americans have already lost their freedom to credit reports.
But reading the quote, one wonders who is this Andrew Jallon guy. Well, a quick google and you can see check out his discus and shotput attempts (not very good). PUBLIC real-estate tax records give a strong implication as to where he lives. And finally, Andrew Jallon's bigoted comments end up on Slashdot. Did he expect this? Should he have expected it. Should we all be paranoid about every post...lest someone take it and run?
It's hard to create safeguards when we're not even sure of all the negatives.
I remember before there were consumer protection laws, and if you bought a defective car, too bad sucker. That was the way for years. Am I going to argue that all safeguards are an infringement? No. Am I going to argue that we're figuring it out? Yes.
Please don't apply simple "take personal responsibility for the fact the world sucks and hates you" rules. We can make it better, but we have to know what's wrong first.
It's nice once in a while to talk about what's right, but, yeah, that's not nearly as sexy and frightening.
The generation that went to college in the era of Facebook/Myspace already expects to be able to find drunken ramblings and absurd photos of themselves and their friends online. This generation thinks less of a person who has a web presence that indicates no social life. Who wants to work with a boring person? Once these people are in charge of hiring (another 10-15 years) this won't be seen as a bad thing for many companies.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.