It’s all so quaint that notion of privacy. Well, so says an article in the BBC magazine. To be fair, there are some reasonable points being made – about managing one’s reputation. If you do plan to put yourself up there on the stage for all to see, well, you had better either manage it to minimise any negative effects or accept the flack when it comes.
However, the premise of the whole thing is flawed somewhat. It assumes that we should be completely transparent – a subliminal nothing to hide, nothing to fear argument. Cindy Gallop expends a lot of words saying it, but once you’ve got to the nub of her argument, that’s what it amounts to. Okay, it isn’t blatant, but it is there lurking in the undergrowth waiting to leap out with a “gotcha!”
The new reality that all of us live in today, personally and professionally, is one of complete transparency.
Actually, no, we don’t. Some people are careless with their party pictures when they post them on Facebook, for example, but that isn’t a transparency thing, its a stupidity one.
Everything we do and say today, whether we are a person or a brand, business or company, is potentially in the public domain courtesy of the internet.
Again, no, not necessarily. Okay, sure, if someone really wanted to dig for me, they would find this place and the would pick up some clues about me – not least my attitude towards authority, the state in particular and civil liberties. They would also discover that I own a few cats. But, then, I make no secret of that last one. I do, however, curb my tongue when out and about regarding the usual hot topics such as religion and politics – unless specifically asked and then, again, I tend to be careful, given the level of brainwashing that has gone on this past few decades. My views when measured against the mean level are somewhat radical. So, in company and in the work environment, I just say nothing. Here, I can speak my mind openly and I do so pseudonymously.
But, and this is the key point, most of the people I work with don’t read blogs. Indeed, they seem completely unaware of the phenomenon. So if they Googled me the first thing they would see is my LinkedIn profile but that doesn’t work anymore as I’ve deleted it. Otherwise there is some old stuff going back years on various support forums for the old Psion operating system and some tortoise stuff. This place while it features some way down the page doesn’t exactly leap out at you. So I’m not overly worried about the two coming together in a damaging manner.
It is because I want to separate the two – even if it is a thin veneer – between me, the real person, and me, the author of this blog that I write under a pseudonym.
If you identify exactly who you are and what you stand for, what you believe in, what you value, and if you then only ever behave, act and communicate in a way that is true to you, then you never have to worry about where anybody comes across you or what you’re found doing.
By definition you are never caught doing anything to be ashamed of.
See what I mean about flawed? That nothing to hide, nothing to fear argument again. What might be fine and dandy may well be less dandy tomorrow. How can you possibly say that what is unashamed today will not get you into the brown and sticky in a year or two? You cannot. Hence, less transparency is the better way to manage one’s profile. If you contribute to blogs and online fora, then use a pseudonym. That way the intemperate remarks that become verboten in the new reality are that much less likely to bite you on the bum. Less openness is the way to protect your name, not more.
Once you have stood up on the stage at TED and announced that you have sex with younger men, no-one can ever shame or embarrass you ever again. So I live my life completely in the open, and that is an enormously stress free and relaxing way to be.
I don’t have sex with any men, but if I did, I wouldn’t stand up on stage and tell people. Indeed, I wouldn’t stand up on stage and tell anyone anything about my sex life – at all. Period. This is because I regard such matters as no one else’s business. It is a private matter and not one for the public domain. When I am faced with those questionnaires that have the effrontery to ask about my sexuality and religious belief, I am looking for the “mind your own business” button – although I have to content myself with “not declared” or “prefer not to say” or some such. What I am not – absolutely not – going to do is declare such things to the world just so that no one can blackmail me at a later stage – or in the case of these obscene forms, so that someone can tick a diversity box. And that is where this whole article is coming from – bare your soul to the world, let everyone know everything and then no one can blackmail you later on.
Jesus, but that’s a misanthropic, dystopian view of the world, isn’t it?
The problem with the internet is the memory effect. This might be due to changing mores as Mr. L mentions, or merely that information can be pieced together from many sources created over the years to cause a person some problem. Yes, there are some people who cause themselves instant grief with the likes of twitter but I think this is the lesser issue for the rest of us.
And it’s very difficult to insulate yourself from this completely, no matter how much you shepherd your own data. Facebook is the obviousl example, where others can publish photo’s or other data on you that you cannot easily control but also the digitization of records and documents is also contributing to it. A friend of mine who has no online presence in his own right found a society he had once been a leading member of had put all it’s records online, including minutes of meetings containing many comments from him personally, some of which had not aged well. It wasn’t directly accessible via Google but it was publicly accessible if you knew how to look for it. I think this is something people underestimate when just googling their name.
I don’t see how you can control this situation, so though while of course you should be careful about what you place on the internet directly yourself, it’s not realistic to think that it won’t be a rich source of information about you unless you have lead the life of a cloistered monk and even then…
There’s stuff up there from my Network Rail days. Not damaging, but I had no control over it, though. So, yes, that can be a problem. However, I don’t see Gallop’s solution being the appropriate one.
Less is more, I think.
I hope Cindy is going to share her bank and credit card details with us. Her full address, date of birth and NI number would be nice too. Oh Internet passwords need not be private either.
“Unintended consequences”. It is now getting to the stage here, where bosses are suspiscious if you can NOT be found on the internet. Especially if you claim to be “computer knowledgable” on your application forms.
This is a similar “problem” as with ID cards, which are “voluntary”….UNTIL you try and DO something, like get books from the library, get insurance, money from the bank, or whatever, without an I.D card.
“If you have done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide”, is rapidly becoming “If you are hiding something, you are obviously doing something wrong”. And the fact you can not be found on the internet, or very little can be found, is becoming to be taken as “hiding something”.
My veneer of pseudonanonymity is thinner than yours, but what you say makes sense. I am accountable for the blog, but it doesn’t cross over too much into my day-to-day work existence.
‘So, in company and in the work environment, I just say nothing. Here, I can speak my mind openly and I do so pseudonymously.’
Isn’t it strange the way all this openess and transparency has turned out? It has done the opposite in what it was suppose to do.
I’m like yourself when it comes to politics… but I rarely express my views openly as I fear it may come back and bite me later.
That is because the BBCesque lefty narrative has become so embedded in the population that the term right wing has now become a pejorative. Any suggestion that the state leaves us alone to live as we see fit might just as well be an admission of being a baby eating evil Nazi. On the occasions that I have heard people grumbling about the behaviour of the state, it is usually in fairly muted tones and done very carefully just in case no one overhears who might shout the charge “racist”.
Jackart – mine hasn’t crossed over at all. No one in the real world has told me that they read my blog. Indeed, no one has said that they read any blogs.
It is because I want to separate the two – even if it is a thin veneer – between me, the real person, and me, the author of this blog that I write under a pseudonym.
A pseudonym! And here was me thinking it was you all this time.
“Nothing to hide”
Like your 13-year-old daughter’s mobile phone number …
Yeah, right.
I have to agree with you that having an internet persona separate from your day-to-day life is essential. It was once suggested to me that I should google my pseudonym, which out of interest I did. Shock! Horror! Bloody pages and pages of it! Mostly thoroughly uninteresting trivia – posts on forums etc. However, as you point out, what is acceptable (if not orthodox) opinion today could easily become subject to a pogrom tomorrow.
“Nothing to fear, nothing to hide”? Fuck off, I’ll stick to nisakiman, thank you…
nisakiman – I received a funny email from you earlier this evening. Your account been compromised?
Yes, my apologies, it has indeed been compromised. The link downloads a keylogger, so don’t click on it. I’ve emailed everyone on my Hotmail contacts to tell them; I hope soon enough to contain it.