It's Okay to Be You Most of the Time, Surely?
These issues are so confusing. I see value in being transparent, in being public, yet I value some aspects of my privacy. I care for some aspects of my reputation (my professional life) but not others (my poor taste in music). I imagine we're all like that to some degree. As more and more of us use Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and so on, what is being said about us is increasingly not under our control. We need better privacy, but perhaps also a better acceptance of publicity.
Privacy
As danah boyd eloquently argues:
Fundamentally, privacy is about having control over how information flows.
The disturbing "inversion of defaults when it comes to what's public and what's private" that we're seeing (see Facebook May Share User Data With External Sites Automatically for another example) appears to be growing, and I can't do a thing about an acquaintance tweeting that they met me at a restaurant. So of course I want privacy when I want it, and I want controls to enforce it when I want it.
But in other cases I don't mind. I don't mind if I am pictured in a pub with a beer (I prefer wine), or that my religion (or lack thereof) is known, or if you know what books I'm reading. Not right now. We're all open and public to varying degrees, and that's also okay.
Publicity
I've argued before that while we do need to consider privacy, we also need to consider publicity. If I perform well at work, should my manager care that I had 3 hours sleep after a ski trip, and that the pictures of that event are publicly available? Probably not.
While we're used to hear-say and gossip about individuals, social media and search (and permanence of medium) takes this to a different level - and while we need more control over privacy settings, we also need society to be less concerned about public information. Michael Arrington feels the same way:
Trying to control, or even manage, your online reputation is becoming increasingly difficult. And much like the fight by big labels against the illegal sharing of music, it will soon become pointless to even try. It’s time we all just give up on the small fights and become more accepting of the indiscretions of our fellow humans. Because the skeletons are coming out of the closet and onto the front porch.
Culture Change
We're all human. We have philandering monarchs and ex-pot-smoking prime ministers - and it's beginning to matter less and less. Thankfully. In the context of their jobs, what matters is whether they can do the job. (The philandering may matter in the context of their family life of course - context is key.) Arrington continues with:
We’re going to be forced to adjust as a society. I firmly believe that we will simply become much more accepting of indiscretions over time. Employers just won’t care that ridiculous drunk college pictures pop up about you when they do a HR background search on you.
As the younger Facebook generation move into HR positions, perhaps the change will be accelerated - but this is a culture change, and I wonder how long it will take.
What I'm concerned about are those that hide, that block public access to all their activity, yet want to be public. I have friends that do this - torn between wanting to be transparent about their lives (to some degree), but fearful that such transparency would lead to their downfall (in some other context). We shouldn't need to hide that which we don't feel the need to - we should have license to be human - and that's a change in society and culture. None of these issues are new - they're just more profound in an online environment where indiscretions from 10 years ago can persist and be collated.
There are so many fascinating moving parts to this. The Internet is forcing these changes in our culture. At some stage fairly soon we're probably going to have to figure out answers to hard questions. Just what public actions of mine are "acceptable" in which contexts? How much should a CEO's public life filled with indiscretions affect his company's brand? To what extent are we "representatives" of the company for which we work?
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