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5 Good Things That Will Come Out Of Poor Internet Privacy
Thursday, March 22nd, 2012 07:45 pmAt the moment, the only upside to the recurring privacy scandals in the social web is that a lot of people with really boring lives can feel better about them. After all, if Google and Facebook want your private data, it must be important, right? Wrong. But if the trend continues and masses of personal data get spread around and mixed up with all the government secrets being broadcast by Wikileaks, there could be some significant benefits. Here are 5 things we may learn to our collective advantage.
1. Almost everybody swears.
OK, this is no big deal, but at least some people will stop living in a bubble-world where only bad people say "fuck", which means the rest of us won't need to feel awkward when someone catches us saying it. Sooner or later the Pope is going to be caught messaging "Du arschgefickter Hurensohn!" to a cardinal and we can all relax.
2. Most people watch porn
My favourite case of unintentional disclosure was not from the evil Facebook but a simple clipboard error: someone posted a bug to the Chromium forum and included the wrong link. The link in question was for, if I remember rightly, group anal sex, but merely produced the laconic reaction "I don't think this link points where you intended." That is how it should be. Goofs like this aside, the chances are that eventually a lot of people will be revealed to be watching porn, and it won't be a big deal any more. Probably the Pope will be one of them. Another of them will be your partner. Of maybe your grandmother. People will just have to live with it.
3. A hell of a lot of people are gay, support gay rights or are friends with gay people
A lot of unintentional outing can occur through social media, which may have bad consequences for the individuals involved in the short term, but in the long term will make it impossible for bigots to pretend that it's only a tiny minority of sick people who are gay, know gays or are anything other than totally hostile to gays.
4. People don't like their governments
"Well DUH!" I hear you say. In Western democracies it is normal to hate politicians (even the ones you vote for) and this naturally spills over into the Internet. But of course the Internet is nothing if not international, so it is becoming increasingly common for people to vent their spleen about governments elsewhere, not just in a spectacular Arab Spring kind of way, but also in an ordinary disillusioned citizen kind of way. The danger, of course, is that governments can get their hands on this data comparatively easily and use it to repress dissent, either overtly Syrian style or less directly American style. But I think - or at least hope - that eventually the sheer volume of citizen discontent is going to give less savoury governments pause for thought. Repressing dissidents for fun and profit is fine when dissidents are an identifiable minority and the government can maintain the illusion that the vast majority of citizens are responsible and patriotic. When you know the vast majority actually regard you with the same respect they accord pubic lice, you have to tread more carefully.
5. Getting drunk and acting stupidly is normal
One of the main reasons people were freaked out by Facebook's Timeline was this made it a lot easier for people to see your past (since apparently you need a degree in computer science to delete anything on Facebook). This was about the same time it was revealed that potential employers were scouring job applicants' Facebook pages and eliminating the ones tagged in pictures of silly drunken activity. Suddenly those college party pictures didn't look so cool. But eventually, I think, there will be so many of these pictures around that employers will wake up to the fact that getting drunk and doing silly things is just what young people do, and unless you're willing to outsource everything to Utah or Saudi Arabia, you'd better get used to it.
1. Almost everybody swears.
OK, this is no big deal, but at least some people will stop living in a bubble-world where only bad people say "fuck", which means the rest of us won't need to feel awkward when someone catches us saying it. Sooner or later the Pope is going to be caught messaging "Du arschgefickter Hurensohn!" to a cardinal and we can all relax.
2. Most people watch porn
My favourite case of unintentional disclosure was not from the evil Facebook but a simple clipboard error: someone posted a bug to the Chromium forum and included the wrong link. The link in question was for, if I remember rightly, group anal sex, but merely produced the laconic reaction "I don't think this link points where you intended." That is how it should be. Goofs like this aside, the chances are that eventually a lot of people will be revealed to be watching porn, and it won't be a big deal any more. Probably the Pope will be one of them. Another of them will be your partner. Of maybe your grandmother. People will just have to live with it.
3. A hell of a lot of people are gay, support gay rights or are friends with gay people
A lot of unintentional outing can occur through social media, which may have bad consequences for the individuals involved in the short term, but in the long term will make it impossible for bigots to pretend that it's only a tiny minority of sick people who are gay, know gays or are anything other than totally hostile to gays.
4. People don't like their governments
"Well DUH!" I hear you say. In Western democracies it is normal to hate politicians (even the ones you vote for) and this naturally spills over into the Internet. But of course the Internet is nothing if not international, so it is becoming increasingly common for people to vent their spleen about governments elsewhere, not just in a spectacular Arab Spring kind of way, but also in an ordinary disillusioned citizen kind of way. The danger, of course, is that governments can get their hands on this data comparatively easily and use it to repress dissent, either overtly Syrian style or less directly American style. But I think - or at least hope - that eventually the sheer volume of citizen discontent is going to give less savoury governments pause for thought. Repressing dissidents for fun and profit is fine when dissidents are an identifiable minority and the government can maintain the illusion that the vast majority of citizens are responsible and patriotic. When you know the vast majority actually regard you with the same respect they accord pubic lice, you have to tread more carefully.
5. Getting drunk and acting stupidly is normal
One of the main reasons people were freaked out by Facebook's Timeline was this made it a lot easier for people to see your past (since apparently you need a degree in computer science to delete anything on Facebook). This was about the same time it was revealed that potential employers were scouring job applicants' Facebook pages and eliminating the ones tagged in pictures of silly drunken activity. Suddenly those college party pictures didn't look so cool. But eventually, I think, there will be so many of these pictures around that employers will wake up to the fact that getting drunk and doing silly things is just what young people do, and unless you're willing to outsource everything to Utah or Saudi Arabia, you'd better get used to it.
