Everyone keeps screaming that the Internet is a public space, but there's no discussion about how digital public is quite different than physical public. When people go online, they take their notions of context and public with them, not necessarily realizing that the differences in underlying architecture fundamentally impact them. People post something online with a notion of the context of space, time and people. I.e., on Usenet, they think about the location of their post in relationship to the other posts in the thread. They think about the types of people that might read their post. And they think about the acceptability of their post at the given time period. People perceive digital public to be like the physical equivalent: ephemeral not persistent. What you say offline to a group of people is rarely going to be taken out of context and then repeated to your boss. Online, space and time are collapsed by search engines, like Google. Thus, posts are taken out of the context in which they were created. In 1985, people had a notion of who the digital "public" was and it looked more like/.ers and academics than it did like the whole world. Commie scare, terrorist scare aside, people are not the same at 30 as they were at 15, but those childish posts are still connected with their identity.
Sure, tell people to use fake names. But why? If Microsoft gets its way, everyone will have one Passport to the web. And even if they don't collapse all of your pseudonyms, marketers or the government might. Hell, even academics are doing fun research on how to determine the individual language of each person.
No, i don't blame Google, but i do call all designers and programmers to get off their high horse and think about the common or marginalized person and start building systems that integrate safety nets for privacy and presentation of self. Otherwise, the Web is going to be awefully boring, full of people who are so outgoing that they don't care if everyone knows their shit or full of the professional resume version of anyone. Boring.
If you've suffered the consequences of this aggregation and are willing to anonymously tell your story, i am really interested in hearing it. Personally, i would like to encourage Google to change its decision, something that can only be done collectively through people's voices.
I know that going down memory lane is entertaining... but i also know that i'm not the only one who is cringing after the humor wears off.
As has been said before, the social consequences of this history can be utmostly harmful. Think of all of the ways that this can be used to destroy privacy, beyond just the job sphere. Who is going to be wrongfully accused of actions based on their past rants? Who is going to be the next victim of our government's domestic terrorism/COINTELPRO raid? How many of you are facing your past angst, anger, fear and rebellion where looking back feels like you are watching "Welcome to the Dollhouse" once again?
When i started posting on Usenet, it never dawned on me that it would be accessible beyond my beloved geek community. I was too young to consider what the differences between public and private are. And besides, what physical public spaces are recorded, searchable and everpresent? There's a certain value to the ephemeral aspect of the public sphere.
How is this data going to be used in the future? We already know that our messages are valuable, as Deja made millions. As data is becoming more and more aggregated, who is going to use these posts for what purposes? Do you really want your archived messages to be factored into your current reputation?
I am fully well aware that the removal of posts destroys the value of the archive. It's exactly that reason that i would encourage everyone to entertain themselves and then purge the past. Deja respected our pasts by only archiving forward; make it clear to Google that we expect the same level of social responsibility. It may be funny right now, but it may not be so humorous when you have no control over your information and must continue to pay for your past.
Slashdot Mirror
Everyone keeps screaming that the Internet is a public space, but there's no discussion about how digital public is quite different than physical public. When people go online, they take their notions of context and public with them, not necessarily realizing that the differences in underlying architecture fundamentally impact them. People post something online with a notion of the context of space, time and people. I.e., on Usenet, they think about the location of their post in relationship to the other posts in the thread. They think about the types of people that might read their post. And they think about the acceptability of their post at the given time period. People perceive digital public to be like the physical equivalent: ephemeral not persistent. What you say offline to a group of people is rarely going to be taken out of context and then repeated to your boss. Online, space and time are collapsed by search engines, like Google. Thus, posts are taken out of the context in which they were created. In 1985, people had a notion of who the digital "public" was and it looked more like /.ers and academics than it did like the whole world. Commie scare, terrorist scare aside, people are not the same at 30 as they were at 15, but those childish posts are still connected with their identity.
Sure, tell people to use fake names. But why? If Microsoft gets its way, everyone will have one Passport to the web. And even if they don't collapse all of your pseudonyms, marketers or the government might. Hell, even academics are doing fun research on how to determine the individual language of each person.
No, i don't blame Google, but i do call all designers and programmers to get off their high horse and think about the common or marginalized person and start building systems that integrate safety nets for privacy and presentation of self. Otherwise, the Web is going to be awefully boring, full of people who are so outgoing that they don't care if everyone knows their shit or full of the professional resume version of anyone. Boring.
If you've suffered the consequences of this aggregation and are willing to anonymously tell your story, i am really interested in hearing it. Personally, i would like to encourage Google to change its decision, something that can only be done collectively through people's voices.
As has been said before, the social consequences of this history can be utmostly harmful. Think of all of the ways that this can be used to destroy privacy, beyond just the job sphere. Who is going to be wrongfully accused of actions based on their past rants? Who is going to be the next victim of our government's domestic terrorism/COINTELPRO raid? How many of you are facing your past angst, anger, fear and rebellion where looking back feels like you are watching "Welcome to the Dollhouse" once again?
When i started posting on Usenet, it never dawned on me that it would be accessible beyond my beloved geek community. I was too young to consider what the differences between public and private are. And besides, what physical public spaces are recorded, searchable and everpresent? There's a certain value to the ephemeral aspect of the public sphere.
How is this data going to be used in the future? We already know that our messages are valuable, as Deja made millions. As data is becoming more and more aggregated, who is going to use these posts for what purposes? Do you really want your archived messages to be factored into your current reputation?
I am fully well aware that the removal of posts destroys the value of the archive. It's exactly that reason that i would encourage everyone to entertain themselves and then purge the past. Deja respected our pasts by only archiving forward; make it clear to Google that we expect the same level of social responsibility. It may be funny right now, but it may not be so humorous when you have no control over your information and must continue to pay for your past.