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Posted November 3rd, 2007, in: Intellectual Property| Semantic Web| Technology
I’ve been thinking about this for a while.
Practically everything we do online is not only not private…
But Also…
Practically everything we do online is potentially permanent.
The stuff that we post to the Web using Standards like HTML can be cached. And the items we upload to a company’s server are, well, on their server, so we really don’t have control over what happens to them.
I imagine a scenario in which a presidental candidate is asked by a member of the press:
“Isn’t it true that when you were 20 years old, you did a strip tease to a Britney Spears song in your bedroom, recorded it with a video camera, and posted it to the Web?”
Next time you’re poking around on the Web, and you find yourself peering into someone’s bedroom, or reading a very personal blog entry written by some young stranger, think to yourself:
How could this effect this individual’s standing in the future world? What information is this individual giving away that he or she might regret later?
BETTER YET,
Ask yourself:
How will our culture be effected by behavior like this? How will our expectations of one another change once all this publicizing of traditionally more intimate behavior makes its mark on us?
“Andrew, didn’t you write, back in 2007, a blog entry about something you were calling ‘The Age of Irreversible Statements’ and in that blog entry, didn’t you talk about a hypothetical strip tease, and link to a real one?”
Yes. And I can’t take it back. Even if I delete this post, it’s not necessarily gone. It’s out of my control.
This isn’t an ‘Orwellian’ vision. It’s not ‘Orwellian’ because this isn’t about top-down surveillence. It’s about what we call ‘Public’ growing in new ways, just as what we call ‘Ourselves’ or ‘Our Community’ is growing in new ways. And it’s not a vision, because it’s already happened. It’s continuing to happen right now.
more soon.
5 Responses to “The Age of Irreversible Statements?”
andrewapeterson wrote on November 3rd, 2007 11:38 pm :
I guess the difference in our viewpoints is that I consider media to be an extension of public assembly. So the level of technological involvement has nothing to do with it.
I admit, Orwellian is a sloppy term to use because its definition isn’t clear. It’s more or less up to the one using the word to determine what set of distopian visions to associate with Orwell.
Where I was trying to relate to 1984, was in the distinction between top-down surveillence by a ruling class, regardless of who it enslaves to do the dirty work, and what I see going on: The public space spreading into the Network, and how social value traditions will be effected by the behavior of those assembled in this new extended public space.
Donnie wrote on November 9th, 2007 5:32 pm :
OK ~ I completely reverse my statement.
About Radiohead’s Recent Statements in Wired « Andrew A. Peterson and Ramping Up wrote on January 6th, 2008 8:04 am :
[...] doesn’t have a permalink or anything so when he takes it off the NIN front page, it will be [practically] gone (c’mon, Trent. Just get a regular blog going with a feed and all! Jeez.) [...]
Radiohead’s Recent ‘Statements’ vs Trent Reznor’s Full Disclosure « Andrew A. Peterson and Ramping Up wrote on January 6th, 2008 8:06 am :
[...] doesn’t have a permalink or anything so when he takes it off the NIN front page, it will be [practically] gone (c’mon, Trent. Just get a regular blog going with a feed and all! Jeez.) [...]
Its been over 20 years since I read Orwell’s 1984, but if I recall the top down control was manifest in individuals monitoring individuals~essentially the masses were divided against themselves by “newspeak.” If mine is an accurate reflection of Orwell’s concerns (which I will admittedly have to go back and research), your musings DO align with Orwell to a degree; a nebulous distinction at best. Whether or not the ‘Elite’ control or the masses submit is really not the concern, it’s that one way or another freedom of expression is limited by institutional oppression.
However, our era is a curious time where perhaps Orwell’s conundrum can be solved by assembly outside a technological construct. Meaning, we need not worry about technological means to communicate if we assemble in the public together. IF and only if the media gives rise to more public (low-tech) assembly (as opposed to the apathetic teeth-gnashing at one’s keyboard) will we see freedom in balance with order in our republic. I don’t like the idea of blogging for freedom.. one must get out and walk the walk with like minded others, otherwise it’s all “newspeak” to me.