Scaremongering at the Symposium?
As part of the Darklight Festival over the weekend a number of symposiums were held to discuss and debate various popular topics related to the online world. I was invited to be a member of the audience by the organisers and found the experience to be rather… interesting.
Privacy vs. Publicity in the Virtual World
Daniel Solove, author of “The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor and Privacy on the Internet” (available for free here) opened this discussion with various anecdotes pertaining to the negative effects of personal details being shared online, either on purpose i.e. through your personal blog, or without the person’s consent e.g. the Star Wars Kid. Coming from a background in law, Solove suggests that the only way to curtail personal details being posted online without your consent is by the threat of legal action being more heavily employed.
“Be responsible”
Solove suggests that allowing anonymity online is irresponsible as it removes any control we have over our personal data (e.g. intimate personal details being posted online without consent) and that the law can only do so much to provide protection. For example, while it may be possible for a photographer to have an unapproved photo removed from an unlicensed website, the individual in the photo has no legal standing. This is because copyright law is much more powerful than privacy law.
“Intertwined with the lives of others”
Solove described how we all have expectations of privacy and anonymity in public, despite always being exposed and how this notion of privacy is mistakenly expected online. Claiming that 50% of bloggers were under the age of 19, he described these Internet users as “Generation Google” – individuals that have had their lives chronicled online, leaving behind fragments of their past that are pervasive and destructive to their future.
Opinion
I disagree with Solove’s judgment that anonymity is irresponsible on the part of ISP’s and websites that encourage and allow it. Anonymity online has always provided Internet users with a constructive means for liberal expression and play, without the risk of social impairment. Though anonymity provides users the facility to post lies online without any apparent risk (except in a serious case where your IP address might be used against you), the power of an anonymous message is certainly not as strong as a message coming from a reputable source.
“Generation Google” is something that I myself am a part of, but it is a heavily constructed and thought out self, which is something anyone reading a blog or a social networking profile needs to consider. Using google search results as a basis for a decision on a job or college applicant is something that I would consider irresponsible, and lazy. Nothing we post online is a 100% true reflection of ourselves, imagine a youthful, boastful comment left on a friend’s social networking profile that might actually be sarcastic or part of an in-joke. It’s all about context, and if the context is unknown then the information is invalid. It is lazy to think otherwise.
Panel Discussion
Following this keynote address was a panel discussion chaired by Caroline Campbell, featuring Jim Carroll, Cormac Callanan, Niall Larkin (read his thoughts on this symposium here) and Damien “almost blogs for a living” Mulley. Daithí Mac Sithigh was also in the audience and has written up a great summary of the panel discussion.
“Whatever goes on the Internet stays on the Internet”
The most prevalent message from this one-sided discussion was that everything you do online is being used to build behavioural profiles for marketing and advertising. On Facebook (and probably other social networking websites) your actions are logged and combined with your profile information for contextual marketing and advertising. Sophisticated data mining tools are used in Gmail and other free online services. Law enforcement in the US use these data mining techniques to track down possible terrorists and it was suggested that all of these combined could lead to surveillance and stalking by commercial and non-commercial companies for negative reasons, debt-collection is an example used by a member of the audience.
Privacy in this instance is not about the actual collection of the data, it’s what happens to it afterwards. Suggestions were made that it would be preferable to have access to this profile and to be notified when your data is being accessed and by whom. However, when Mulley asked the audience “Who actually cares?” a minority raised their hands.
Opinion
In my opinion, many of the members of the panel seemed to be scaremongering the audience. It would have been a more interesting discussion if even one of the members of the panel was under 30 (correct me if I’m wrong). All of them seemed quite outraged by the idea that their personal details and behaviour online could be used to help companies make more money. I would argue that there are many positive things about this type of data mining, for example, attempts (unsuccessful so far) at contextualising advertising on websites such as Facebook.
Contextual ads make advertisements entertaining and informative. Personally, I’d rather this than being bombarded with irrelevant ads (like when I watch television). However, this does not mean that the advertising is more successful because of this. Despite the fear of behavioural profiles being sold to marketing and advertising executives, these sets of data are in no way accurate at predicting human behaviour. Behaviour changes on a daily basis and can’t be actualised using selective pieces of information we ourselves post into the likes of social networking websites. Our reactions to advertising and products can change based on far too many variables for a behavioural profile to predict.
Websites like Facebook and Google give us a service and our payment to them is our content. Without our content these websites are completely useless and no-one would be willing to pay for them. It’s naive for anyone to think that you can get something for nothing online and if you’ve nothing to hide, why be so afraid of a little data mining? How does this even affect your every day life? I would argue that it doesn’t. It’s a pity the panel were so strongly of the opinion that it was 100% negative. I do however agree that users signing up to these services might need to be informed more readily of the fact that their data might be used in this manner.
The question is - Do you care? (Take a second to Take the poll or leave a comment below).
June 30th, 2008 at 10:50 pm
50% are under the age of 19?
How come I’ve hardly seen any of these.
Does this mean I cannot say I’m “probably Ireland’s best rurally based blogger under the age of 19 that predominantly writes about supermarkets”?
I’ve lost my niche.
Have to say I don’t really care; most people get really paranoid about this yet have no problem with tesco clubcards and the like.
I prefer the huge enjoyment I get from free things on the internet as opposed to the .1cent for every 10 euro spent on that other scam.
I’m aware the internet has a lot more access and all… but still… meh.
July 1st, 2008 at 8:41 am
Nice blog post.
Thinking of the trail left by the Google Generation (ugh, useless term, imho) is it necessarily negative? No, it isn’t. I know people who have gained job offers through parts of their trail. And I have heard quite a few people (students, just entering the world of work, but with their sights set high) who have decided they would rather be their authentic selves online, and if potential employers don’t like it then they *are just the wrong employers* - a sentiment I rather like.
July 1st, 2008 at 8:42 pm
@ B’dum B’dum - Do any niche’s still exist online? I would have assumed most of them have been exploited already. I must agree with you about people getting paranoid, I’d rather the free enjoyment too.
@ Pat - Thanks for your comment. I love that “wrong employers” line, I think I would fit firmly into that group.
So far the poll reads that 64% of people (that’s 7 out of 11) DO care.
July 1st, 2008 at 11:39 pm
Yeah exploited, but not so overloaded that I shoot out like a wet bar of soap.
I doubt any actual travellers have blogs.
I’m the sort of idiot that is 100% honest in job interviews… so the internet wouldn’t affect that a lot unfortunately.
July 2nd, 2008 at 6:05 pm
Hey, great piece.
I was at the talk too. it was interesting enough but I agree with you about the scaremongering.
Waving mobile phones around and saying you can be tracked down at any moment is a little OTT, not to mention that type of tracking is illegal. Enemy Of The State is a great paranoid example of how these things could work in the future, but obviously don’t now, otherwise there would be the intelligence to prevent war (interesting oxymoron)
The other thing I thought was that “Generation Google” are all in it together. (I’m in my thirties so I don’t qualify.) You will ALL have the same kind of digital footprints in 20 years time, they’re saying it is a bad thing, but it hasn’t been tested, so, who knows. To be honest I’d love to be able to look back now at a blog I wrote in my late teens….they were some good times.
Also you are bang on about contextual ads being infinitely better than random ones.
July 3rd, 2008 at 8:29 pm
That’s a great observation - Generation Google won’t be alone, they’ll all be in the same boat. It won’t have much of an impact in that case!