Privacy is an odd concept to my generation. Ever since my teens every tiny detail about my life has been shared with the world. This might worry a concerned parent to death, but I didn’t care then and I still don’t now.
MySpace was the first social network to get me hooked. When I started it was a bit of a “who has the most friends” contest. This meant that almost anyone could view everything I was putting online. When Facebook came along I was a lot savvier, I still didn’t mind who was looking at my profile but I had a much more select group of friends.
Fast forward to today, and I’m sharing a lot more about myself than I was even when I was using MySpace.
Using a mixture of Twitter, Youtube, Facebook and Foursquare, my friends can see what I’m doing at work, where I’m going for lunch, and what I’m thinking about all day. This is what I’m used to, I grew up with the foundations of this technology.
So why am I so relaxed about people seeing what I do online? Because I’m not an idiot.
Recently a woman was fired from her job for ranting about her boss on Facebook.
There have been countless stories about similar incidents and I have the same feelings about every one.
“Don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t want plastered on a billboard with your face on it.” Erin Bury, Sprouter Community Manager.
This quote by Erin Bury says it all. If I don’t want someone to know something about me, I don’t put it online. As it happens I’m very much an open person and I don’t have many secrets, but if I did, I wouldn’t shout about them on the internet, just as I wouldn’t shout about them in real life.
Facebook has had a lot of criticism about its privacy settings, but if people just took the time to learn what they can do to protect themselves, they wouldn’t have to complain. Here’s a video outlining the privacy settings and how to use them by Mr Zuckerberg himself.
With this in mind, I move on to the topic of super injunctions. According to the BBC:
“There are different types of injunctions and a super-injunction is the most powerful. A super-injunction stops anyone publishing information about the applicant which is said to be confidential or private – but also prevents anyone from reporting that the injunction itself even exists.”
There is a lot of controversy around this subject at the moment, centering mainly around Twitter. Newspapers are able to post the stories but not mention the names of the people involved. Minutes later, users of the micro-blogging service work out who the celebrity is and it is there for the world to see. For example, this article about a certain misbehaving footballer.
The problem is, anyone can say anything on Twitter, anywhere in the world. Privacy is dead and there is nothing you can do about it.
My advice is get savvy, get smart, learn everything you can and don’t put anything online that you don’t want people to know, or better yet, don’t do it in the first place.
Want more? Check out Part II