Saturday, February 2, 2008
Rethinking Privacy
Anyone who thinks that privacy is a simple and unchanging concept should read the five-volume A History of Private Life (a total of some 3,250 pages--and that's just for a focus on Western Europe! Privacy moves in fits and starts, often in response to political or technological changes. We've been struggling with privacy on the Internet for some time; social networking sites and the social web in general seem to have brought the issue to a boil.
Where we get into a confused muddle is that our concepts of privacy are very much centered on place. This works out very well for us because our concept of privacy is centered on ourself (and, of course, others' privacy is centered on themselves). Like all physical objects, we can only be on one place at a time, so that if we are in a room and can see no one else in it, we can reasonably assume that we are private and alone.
Much of our privacy centers around two sets of places: public and private We now have a third place, and it's a very different place. It's the Internet, and we can be in several places at once. We can be in a single physical location, such as a room, but we can also be in an Internet chat room, a Web site, or a social networking site. Those are definite presences in virtual space.
Our challenge now is to formulate our expectations for privacy in this very new type of place. The rules of public and private actual spaces don't map exactly to the digital world.
I think that we'll get a bit more confused before things get clearer. However, with something like 40% of the online population using social networking sites, we're going to have to clarify things pretty quickly.
Where we get into a confused muddle is that our concepts of privacy are very much centered on place. This works out very well for us because our concept of privacy is centered on ourself (and, of course, others' privacy is centered on themselves). Like all physical objects, we can only be on one place at a time, so that if we are in a room and can see no one else in it, we can reasonably assume that we are private and alone.
Much of our privacy centers around two sets of places: public and private We now have a third place, and it's a very different place. It's the Internet, and we can be in several places at once. We can be in a single physical location, such as a room, but we can also be in an Internet chat room, a Web site, or a social networking site. Those are definite presences in virtual space.
Our challenge now is to formulate our expectations for privacy in this very new type of place. The rules of public and private actual spaces don't map exactly to the digital world.
I think that we'll get a bit more confused before things get clearer. However, with something like 40% of the online population using social networking sites, we're going to have to clarify things pretty quickly.
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