As a result of Friday's conversation on 'What is Privacy?' in the first Embedding Privacy class, I began to think rather in depth about the actual definition and what it means to have one's privacy invaded in a world that is slowly obliterating the ability to keep certain forms of information private. There are certain things, such as our credit card numbers, social security numbers and maybe even our phone numbers and addresses that we consider to be private for obvious reasons. If someone were able to get a hold of this information they could use it to steal our identity or commit other crimes that could have negative consequences to our financial well-being. These are forms of information that, if stolen or discovered, most people would consider to be an invasion of their privacy.
But in an age that encourages public social communication, not simply with words and factual information about ourselves, but with pictures and video content, the concept of what kinds of information distribution constitute an invasion of privacy has changed. As I mentioned in class, privacy therefore can almost be seen as a function of context and perception, meaning that it has a direct relationship to the context of how information about ourselves is viewed and our perception of that information within its displayed context.
Several important points were brought up in class that I thought were very interesting, one being the idea, raised by Tristan Perich I believe, that to restrict the communication of personal information online because of privacy concerns would be more harmful to his concept of communication then to have his information readily accessible. I would guess that today many people whose daily life has been integrated into and supplemented by the use of such public sites as myspace, flickr, youtube and the like would potentially agree. I feel that this has a direct relationship to the shift of the internet from serving a need to socialize and communicate with the promise of anonymity to serving a need to develop an online persona that is more closely related to who you are in 'real life'. Not that people don't still develop anonymous personalities or value spaces that restrict the 'real' information that is available about who they 'actually' are, but the level of communication that happens online with 'real' faces and 'real' circumstances attached to 'actual' people is considerably greater then it was even a couple years ago. Not that this level of communication always emphasizes a development of one's actual persona, one look at a site like the ultra-public myspace will immediately make it self evident that identity development online is more akin to a kind of reserved view of oneself, where information that one wants the world to see is available, such as pictures that display us in a way we are comfortable with, while other information is kept secret.
This is why I feel that privacy is a matter of perception. It is not so much that the definition of privacy has changed with the inclusion of the internet and digital tools into our lives (as someone suggested I was stating in class). Rather it seems that our perception of the things that we want to keep private has changed depending on the context within which such information is revealed. And this perception is different for different people. For instance, some people may feel quite comfortable developing a representation of their reserved identity on myspace, while others may not. Yet the same people may feel completely comfortable posting pictures of their life on flickr because flickr exists within a different context. Still others may not want to join any of these sites but have no problem having their own personal website. And it is not just our image that we are willing to share but the context within which our image and identity exists within a larger definition. On many of these social networking and media posting sites an emphasis is given not simply on who we are to ourselves but who we are to others. Our social relationships with other people, however removed form their context in real life, are subject to the same level of scrutiny as our own personal selves. One of the questions I have been asking myself recently is how much our online relationships change the context of those relationships in real life? And I'm not talking about those people we only know in the context of an online space, although it is very interesting to consider how many of those kinds of relationships people now possess, but rather the relationships that we do actually have in real life that are supplemented in an online arena. Does it make them stronger or weaker, based less on intimacy and more on a kind of voeyerism or does the ability to always be 'in touch' make these relationships more intimate?
I'm not a hundred percent sure what my answer is to these questions, but I am quite sure that our relationships with people and with ourselves is quite different the more time that we spend cultivating and participating in communication within online spaces. The fact that we can email, im, myspace message or even text message our friends to communicate without having to actually speak to them on the phone or see them in person has changed the construct within which our relationships exist. And the fact that we can view pictures and sometimes even video of the people in our lives online without having to see them in person and hold the photographs they've taken or sit in their house/apartment and watch their most recent home video does make things different, but is it always necessarily a good thing. Does the fact that we have given up some levels of our privacy for convenience and communication always mean that those we are communicating with feel closer to us, know us better, etc.? I'm not sure.
But back to the question of privacy, if many of us have willingly agreed to give up certain aspect of our once 'private lives' to an online audience, then how do we accurately measure an invasion of that privacy, short of the obvious stealing of information for criminal acts that we all agree is an obvious invasion. I feel that Danah Boyd may say it best in her online post, Facebook's "Privacy Trainwreck": Exposure, Invasion, and Drama (which I read thanks to Dan Phiffer's posting of it to the ITP student list). The Facebook situation, which has been blogged about to death already, is actually an interesting case study in how people, willing to give up certain infromation to an online space, can still feel that their privacy has been violated depending on their perception of how that information is being used in a particular context. Facebook basically made immediately and blantanly available information about users to their friends in a news feed. The information contained within the feed was already 'public' to the people that it was delivered to, meaning it was information that users have always been able to determine on their own through looking at their friends' profiles, but it was provided in a different context. Despite the fact that the actual levels of privacy were not actually changed on the site, there was an overwhelmingly negative response to the new features by many users, many of whom were upset because they felt that the feed was somehow an invasion of their privacy. In the essay Danah Boyd makes a couple of good points. First she states that:
Privacy is not simply about the state of an inanimate object or set of bytes; it is about the sense of vulnerability that an individual experiences. When people feel exposed or invaded, there’s a privacy issue.
Therefore, it seems that privacy is not necessarily about the information itself but rather about an individual person's perception of how the information is displayed, used or disseminated. When someone feels that their information has been taken out of its original context, as what happens now on Facebook, people feel that their privacy has been invaded. And this invasion can be quite devastating, and not necessarily because of the actual content of the information itself. It seems that this is the next level of privacy protection we must consider in an online context. Not specifically what information is released or what we are prepared to share of ourselves, but under what contexts and through what kind of structural architecture is the dissemination of certain kinds of information appropriate and relevant.
To give another example in my own life online, I have a very distinctly different reaction to the 'friend request' depending on which online context it is coming from. When I get friend requested on myspace by people I don't know, while it is annoying, it is doesn't bother me that much because the architecture and structure of myspace already suggests the possibility of this happening. However, when someone I don't know at all adds me as a contact on flickr, i feel somewhat odd and invaded. This does not happen so much when someone I don't know adds one of my pictures as a favorite. I accept that as a photo sharing site, others may see and enjoy my pictures and therefore want to add them as favorites (although since all of my 'good' cameras are still film, none of my flickr pictures are very interesting and therefore I'm not sure why anyone but my friends would 'favorite' my photos). But I accept this as a function of the site. However, since the architecture of flickr seems to encourage the sharing of images between people who know each other in real life or have some connection outside the context of the website itself, to be added as a contact by someone you don't know feels almost like an invasion of your privacy.
Again, this has nothing to do with the actual content of the information that is available, I know that most of my photos are public because I have consciously decided to make them public and I know that they are available for anyone to view through searches and that a good many people may search flickr this way. So it is not the viewing of the information that invades my concept of privacy within the site, but rather the acknowledgement by a complete stranger that they are viewing my content on such a regular basis that they feel the need to add me as a contact. In addition, because I am not able to 'approve' or 'deny' such contact invitations as I am on myspace, my perception of the act as being personal is increased. The other factor that contributes to this is, because flickr is a media sharing site, the emphasis is placed on the media rather then on the people creating the media. I can search for people specifically if I want, but the search emphasis is placed on searching through tags, groups or most interesting/recently uploaded pictures.
It is the architecture and use of the online space itself, therefore, that defines my perception of what I constitute as private within the site and what I constitute as an invasion of that privacy. For instance, I think I would feel even more strange if someone I didn't know friend requested me on radar, an ultra-private mobile picture sharing site where images are not available to anyone but those 'friends' I have invited through their email addresses and private invitation codes. You can't search for people, pictures or anything else on radar. However, they recently released functionality which allows you to invite people who are friends of your friends by clicking on their name. I can see the friends of my friends only when they comment on my friends' pictures. I cannot see these people's pictures, who their friends are or anything about their involvement or activity on the site. But now, with a click on their name I can invite them to join my radar. As aforementioned, because of this kind of architecture, which further emphasizes online relationships that exist in the real world, I would feel very invaded if someone I didn't know, regardless of how well they knew one of my radar friends, friend requested me.
Much of this has been rambling, but in conclusion, I feel that in trying to define and realize the individual definitions and privacy concerns that people may have when participating in an online space, we must remember that the architecture of the space itself will define a users perception of what information they are willing to release and in what manner they are willing to release it. Not that extremely public websites encourage an audience to be less willing to release personal information, just look at most myspace profiles. Or that private websites encorage more of a release. Only that a users perception of their indentity on the site and their understanding of the context within which their information is being displayed and received will change depending on how an online space is structured. It is therefore, up to those of us who are interested in creating spaces for online social networkig and communication to consider how we want these spaces to feel, and realize that how they are structured has a direct relationship to a person's comfort level for certain kinds of communication. If what we are hoping for is communication that develops some kind of relevant relationships between people, that supplements our existing relationships in a positive way and/or allows for communication that is in some way relevant, we must design our online spaces in ways that encourage it. In this vein, I think that Danah Boyd's point about gossip in her essay is very interesting:
If gossip is too delicious to turn your back on and Flickr, Bloglines, Xanga, Facebook, etc. provide you with an infinite stream of gossip, you'll tune in. Yet, the reason that gossip is in your genes is because it's the human equivalent to grooming. By sharing and receiving gossip, you build a social bond between another human. Yet, what happens when the computer is providing you that gossip asynchronously? I doubt i'm building a meaningful relationship with you when i read your MySpace CuteKitten78. You don't even know that i'm watching your life. Are you really going to be there when i need you?
Sure, strangers are one thing but what about people you sorta know? I have no doubt that strong ties can be maintained through these systems, provided that other forms of synchronous engagement complement the gossip feed. But i also believe that it gives you a fake sense of intimacy for people you don't really know that well. And that fake sense of intimacy is both misleading and dreadfully disappointing.
Her final conclusion on the Facebook feed is also interesting:
Facebook says that the News Feed is here to say. This makes me sad. I understand why they want to provide it, i understand what users are tempted by it. But i also think that it is unhealthy, socially disruptive
I'm still thinking.....
