[Air-l] Re: an Ess-ian Q: when does the personal becomes public?

[Eszter Hargittai]

I agree that private conversations should be kept private, but that
doesn't mean others will abide by that rule.  Similar concerns come up
regarding photos.  All this means that I do think we have to be more
careful when in public, any type of public setting for that matter.

I think the issue is related to trust and bloggers who disregard certain
expectations about privacy may suffer in the longterm.  (Of course, that's
hardly consolation for someone whose comment made with the expectation of
private communication has been made public already.)  That is, if I know
about someone who blogs without regard to a person's privacy then I will
be much more on guard when talking to that person or in that person's
presence. It's similar to some general behavior.  If you know about
someone who gossips a lot and can't keep a secret then you are less likely
to tell them about sensitive information.

There is an added twist when the one blogging is anonymous/pseudonymous
but the one being blogged about gets named. I consider that especially
problematic since the blogger's identity is not known while the one being
talked about is outed.

By the way, I blogged about all this last year.:)
Privacy in the age of blogging
http://crookedtimber.org/2004/12/20/privacy-in-the-age-of-blogging/

My personal take on it is that I won't blog (or mention on my mailing
list) any comment by anyone else unless I ask for explicit permission or
unless the person had posted it publicly first. (I suspect some people
I've asked in the past have thought that I was being ridiculously careful,
but I'd rather err on that side.) Similarly with photos, I won't post
publicly pictures of others until obtaining explicit permission that it's
okay to do so.

Eszter


> Every once in a while, I Google recent and high page-ranking references to
> me.
>
> I was surprised when I did this recently to find my name mentioned in two
> blogs:
>
> -- A purported quotation from me from a dinner table conversation a few
> years ago.
>
> -- A side comment that I purportedly made to the blogger who claims to be
> sitting next to me at another conference.
>
> This has gotten me to thinking.
>
> 1. Is it ethical to publish private conversations without the speaker's
> approval?
>
> 2. Or has the nature of networked community become such that just as the
> public has become personal, the personal has become public?
>
> Secret police types would concurr: If you have nothing to hide, why worry?
>
> But I have had enough experiences in America, China, Russia
> and Bulgaria to know I don't want to live that way. And neither do my
> friends who have lived in these countries.
>
> Surely there is a matter of private discourse among friends and
> colleagues. Or has blogging by scholars merged with gossip columns?
>
> My own feeling is that my papers, lectures and perhaps even public
> conference utterances are publishable. My side comments over dinner and in
> informal groups are not -- unless I explicitly agree.
>
> Or am I just an old fuddy-duddy who doesn't understand the new world of
> blogs -- even those by scholars?
>
>  Barry
>  _____________________________________________________________________
>
>   Barry Wellman         Professor of Sociology        NetLab Director
>   wellman at chass.utoronto.ca  http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman
>
>   Centre for Urban & Community Studies          University of Toronto
>   455 Spadina Avenue    Toronto Canada M5S 2G8    fax:+1-416-978-7162
> 	     To network is to live; to live is to network
>  _____________________________________________________________________
>
>
>
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