John Naughton comments on the erosion of privacy in the Internet age. The super injunction that once ensured that people never knew what it was that they didn’t know has been eroded by the advance of the search engine. No longer can a celebrity keep their peccadilloes to themselves with the order from a judge.
While I don’t like the super injunction as it is all too easy for it to be abused – Carter Ruck, anyone? The general principle that the Internet has eroded privacy is a fair point. Newspapers such as the News of the World make a living out of peering into the private lives of others – and not always celebrities. Providing that it is suitably salacious, anything goes and the poor sod who is caught on camera doing something that the papers and its readership will devour with delicious disapproval; is stuck – having had their lives exposed to the masses and their reputation torn to tatters. Not for the ordinary Joe, the super injunction. So, while I don’t care much what footballers get up to in their private lives – private means private to me, it would be nice if ordinary folk who are investigated had the same level of protection. Except that, as Naughton points out, that protection is waning.
Is this a good thing? On balance, no. It would be nice to think that peoples’ privacy is honoured, but while there is money to be made, newspaper editors will hunt with the slavering pack, slaughtering the standing of anyone who might be a juicy story. Now, if it involves criminal activity, that’s fine. Investigative journalism has its place. However, if it is merely to provide titillation on a Sunday morning for the prurient hypocrites seeking a little soft porn, then, no, it is not alright.
All of which leads me to the intertubes. Here, we are victims of our own egos. We can decide how much, or how little we share. We can decide what levels of involvement we allow others into our worlds. Those who indulge in Facebook have a choice about who may see their drunken photographs and if they don’t use those settings, really cannot complain when someone else finds out and they get into trouble over it. My own solution to that particular conundrum is not to have a Facebook account. Anyone doing a casual search won’t find a Facebook profile for me, because there isn’t one.
Naughton is correct in that the Internet has eroded the concept of privacy. And if they have a hint of scandal, journalists will use it to dig deeper into the back story of their intended victim. We know this. We don’t have to make it easy for them.
“Naughton is correct in that the Internet has eroded the concept of privacy. And if they have a hint of scandal, journalists will use it to dig deeper into the back story of their intended victim. We know this. We don’t have to make it easy for them.”
A lesson this young man could have done with, I suspect…
Indeed. Silly boy.
I find privacy a double edged sort of thing. In the past most people had very little privacy, living in large families and tight communities meant family and neighbours knew one another’s business. Almost everyone’s address was available through the phone book.
But it didn’t matter so much when people were understanding, respectful of one another and honest. It’s started to matter now because people and authorities will misuse information they collect. The problem is perhaps not privacy as such but the misuse of information.
I’m inclined to agree with Woodsy42. However, the potential problem with the internet is that it makes it very easy to harvest a great deal of information about a person, particularly if that person uses Facebook or similar. “Google is your friend” as they say..
Hence the widespread usage of usernames; an attempt at anonymity and thus privacy, but even that won’t shield you from a determined questor.
What I really fail to understand is why people will pay to read all the scurrilous tripe that the papers print. I mean, who the fuck gives a shit?
‘My own solution to that particular conundrum is not to have a Facebook account. Anyone doing a casual search won’t find a Facebook profile for me, because there isn’t one.’
Can’t someone forge a Facebook profile using anyone’s name they like though? Is that even possible and a danger?
I avoid Facebook like the plague as far as I can. Trouble is, our friends write to us and it would be churlish not to answer.
FFS Mr. L, OK you have avoided Facebook but you are one of the least private, private persons I know. Have you read your own blog lately?
Meant in the nicest possible way of course but struck by the irony of it all…
There is no irony – we choose what we share and how we share it. I’ve always been clear about that. Facebook makes it very easy to find people. Yes, if people wanted to dig around, they can find out who I am. A search of Facebook using my name will fail.
If I search my own name, this place doesn’t come up. What does is the business stuff that I want people to find. That’s why I post pseudonymously.