Privacy in a Digital Age
Offline Last night I discovered through a friend that a series of pictures of me have made their way onto facebook. They were of me with a couple of friends at one of those golf outings where they auction off attractive girls to be your caddies for the day. Nothing particularly scandalous about them, and I imagine most of the people who see them would have the same reaction my friend had which was "damn, looks like you had a lot of fun". Yet my initial reaction was irritation and the more I think about it, the more irritated I get.
I do not have a facebook account, I do everything I can to avoid facebook simply because I don't think everyone I know needs to know everything I do. If I want to share the story of the golf outing with someone I will share it. It doesn't need to be broadcast out to everyone, especially since many people have fb friends that number well into the hundreds or even thousands where they barely know most of them. Heck, I know some people that could probably walk right by half their fb friends and not even recognize that they know them.
The problem is that everyone has a phone on them 24/7 and all of those phones have cameras. It is impossible to avoid having your picture taken, it is impossible to prevent it from being uploaded and someone is most likely going to tag it. You don't really want to be that dick who says, "don't take my picture" and ruins a good time making a big deal out of a stupid picture. But, please don't take my picture.
Am I crazy or does anyone else feel the same way I do?
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
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Well I don't necessarily want my picture taken walking out of a brothel (not that there are any where I live but you get the point). I guess the most important factor though is whether or not just anyone can find those pictures by simply googling my name. If not, then it propably isn't a big deal.
I avoid facebook and mobile phones and live like a semi-recluse, so I haven't had that problem yet, but it seems like lack of privacy is the way of the world now.
From what I can gather, this doesn't seem to bother the youth of today much.
Is that true youngsters?
I think we have grown up around this stuff enough that most of us are desensitized to possible privacy violations, and their implications.
I almost feel bad for my generation of future politicians. Negatively reflecting Facebook posts or pictures from the youth of a presidential candidate would be quite juicy indeed.
I've seen many posts that makes me think "No way they are going to be president if anyone sees that later."
Secularist, Atheist, Skeptic, Freethinker
I worked in security too long to be annoyed by this. I figure I never know when someone will be taking my picture or filming me, so I operate under the assumption I'm always being filmed.
I also see it escalating, with no way to curtail it, so you might as well get used to it.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
I feel just like you do Beyond. But I see no way of really putting a stop to this sort of thing. To be perfectly honest, I just have never liked having my picture taken anyway. My niece loves to snap pictures of her and her friends, every time they go to a Pizza Hut or to the mall and they have to plaster their facebook accounts with them.
She was down here visiting me one time and I was in the garage, tinkering on the bike and having a bad day. I looked up at one point, with my hair hanging in my face, oil and grease on my arms, wearing my oldest and most worn out t-shirt filled with holes, and there she was. Snapping a picture to put on Facebook of her "favorite" uncle.
I finally talked her into taking it down, and she honestly could not see the big deal about it. Which maybe it wasn't, but I am just not one for having my picture taken.
“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno
I see how you feel. It seems sweet from her perspective what she did, but I can totally understand not wanting a picture of yourself on someone else's page, especially something you might consider a 'bad' picture.
Secularist, Atheist, Skeptic, Freethinker
Well if I ever run for office, a handful of pictures of me drunk will be the least of my problems. Yeah, there isn't much I can do about it except limit it by not putting anything up myself. At least I can play the old curmudgeon and gripe about it, apparently "kids" (by which I mean anyone one year younger than me) these days have no problem with everyone seeing everything. Judging by the pics I have seen, the fact that the whole family will see them hasn't changed behavior at all. I'm glad my parents never saw pics of what I was doing in my 20's.
I just don't understand the desire to display everything in your life so publicly to everyone.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
Self-gratification?
Well specifically, I have seen many people spew hate-speech, racism, profound ignorance, and much more. These Facebook posts are archived and stay around on the Internet possibly forever. It could be a good thing, except that people change their views and can get less stupid and vile.
Secularist, Atheist, Skeptic, Freethinker
I sometimes forget myself a little on this site and behave a bit like the way I would if I were spinning a yarn in my lounge room. I possibly wouldn't say some of those things to strangers in a pub.
Now, should I hit send and post this trivial comment and publicly show myself up as being shallow?
Aaah, can't help myself...
I have a fb account. No big deal. You do not have to post anything on it. You do not have to have "friends". You do not have to share or like anything. You do not have to play any of the social games. You do not have to sign on all that often if you don't want. I mostly have it to keep track of family and a couple of real, get-together-for-dinner friends who don't live close any more.
What to do if someone posts a picture of you? Depends. If it is a group photo, you are probably stuck. Unless everyone in the entire group complains, it will stay up. If it is just you, you can request fb to remove the photo. Yes, you can and yes, they will. But you have to be able to sign in first - which means you have to have an account. Or if you know who put it up, you can ask the person who put it up to take it down.
Since you do not have an account, they can not "tag" you in the group photo. So if they have not identified you in a caption, you are some anonymous guy - except to people who already know you. If their account is private - that is, if they have set it up so only "friends" can view their page - not all that many people can see it anyway. Even if they have 10,000 "friends" that comparatively still isn't all that many people. If someone were to look up my page, and I had not "friended" them, they would see "CJ only shares some information publicly. If you know CJ, send her a friend request or message her." That is because I have turned on all of the privacy filters.
I figure if I am boring enough in my life habits - and I have been for years now - no one will really care about me. I find it annoying that the stores track my purchases because I will not pay for cash for every little thing. The coupons that are generated just for me often are useless, but I figure it keeps the marketing and programming people paying their own bills. The only way you can lead a totally private life is always pay cash, never use a bank, don't have any bills - mortgages, car payments, credit cards - or frequent flier programs or do any on line purchasing or bill paying - which is all too much trouble for me to bother. I really like the convenience of on line shopping and banking. And never, ever do anything you would be ashamed or concerned about showing up on the front page of the news. Because as you say, phone cameras are everywhere.
PS - I HATE having my picture taken. Always have. There are no pictures of me on fb - or anywhere else on the internet that I know of.
-- I feel so much better since I stopped trying to believe.
"We are entitled to our own opinions. We're not entitled to our own facts"- Al Franken
"If death isn't sweet oblivion, I will be severely disappointed" - Ruth M.