Plundering Problematic Privacy Pet-Peeves

The Internet and privacy do not correlate very well. First of all, the internet is a symbolic playground of gossip. John told Susan, who told her best-friend-forever Martha, who told her boyfriend, who told everyone he knew, therefore everyone now knows. Privacy settings do exist on social networks such as Facebook, but many people overlook their existence, or provide lenient opportunities for complete strangers to have access too their most drunken escapades in photo albums, and all manners of inappropriate information.

For example, several employees from a former job of mine are "friends" on my Facebook account. This means they can see how shitfaced I got at the club I attended last weekend. They can also read all the notes I've written, and all the raunchy inside jokes in my profile and wall where all of my friends either verbally abuse me or say otherwise strange things. Is this a good thing? Probably not. I'm lucky that my former co-workers and supervisors were fairly relaxed, easy-going people who don't take these things seriously. But what if, someday in the future a particularly traditionally rigid boss looks me up on facebook, decides to add me as a "friend" and peruses my social history. This might not look so good after I've handed in my carefully crafted and respectable resume.

In a workplace environment, leaking confidential information privy to the business can get your fired, or worse. The ramifications of betraying a corporations trust can be harsh, and that is where the internet is providing more opportunities to commit fraud.


If you want every single acquaintance, well wisher, pal, chum, friend-of-a-friend, childhood enemy, ex-lover, relative, fellow student, or co-worker to know that you broke up with your significant other on Friday, at 3:15 a.m. and that every picture in your albums of you and that person together are now absent, then get a Facebook account. That is the kind of privacy that social networks can afford you.

The lack of privacy on the web can also work to an individual’s advantage, by providing outlets of information that otherwise is not available to the general public. When crimes have been committed and the names of particular suspects have not been released by police officials, then journalists and everyday people can have access to their identities through those who post the information on the web.

When the votes in the American election have been tallied in one state, and have not yet been released on television, guess where that information can end up? It could leak through people onto the web, giving people up- to-date information immediately. It can also assure the reverse. For example, during the 2004 elections in the United States an exit poll was prematurely released that indicated that John Kerry overwhelmingly won the election. This led the American public to believe that the wrong man had become their president. In cases such as this, erroneous information can lead to much larger societal impacts than the public knowledge of a break-up.

Citizens can either misuse the information available to them on the internet, or they can utilize it responsibly. The same line of thought can be applied to those who post information on the web. People seem to think that what they write about themselves on the internet is irrelevant to real life and will never arise in realistic situations. For instance, the mentality that the thoughts that we write in a blog or social network are like words written in the sand, they do not make any kind of impact. This is a naïve and irresponsible way of looking at internet content. People should treat internet privacy with the same amount of intelligence that they would treat a conversation with a stranger on the street. You wouldn’t give him pictures of your friends and family, your cell phone number and your apartment number and waltz off. When it comes to internet privacy people have to exercise caution and common sense.