Participatory Media, Privacy Issues and Your Online Identity

After being assigned a reading on Web 2.0 by Trebor Scholz, I reflected on the clarifications discussed in the article about the Internet's social progression. Participation from Internet users and the collaboration and sharing of user-submitted content has become wildly popular. Websites like Wikipedia, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook allows users of all sorts to post information about themselves, their interests, share pictures, videos and other online activity. Digital communication has become all about the mixing and consuming of these multiple sources and pieces of information.

Interestingly enough, many of these collaborative website have been active since the mid-90s, and this connectivity and sharing of information IS what Internet creator Tim Berners-Lee intended the Internet be used for initially. Though in the article, Scholz clarified that the term Web 2.0 has only now been coined recently in order to create enthusiasm among potential investors. Because of course, the nature of businesses and marketers has been to collect this collaborated user information as intelligence - ultimately allowing them to further their own business endeavors.

This got me thinking about the way I use participatory media and real-time websites like Twitter. I spent this past summer 2009 experimenting with Twitter.com – mainly following domestic and international news outlets to keep up to date with the world, and some celebrities for entertainment news. Occasionally, I would post a tweet commenting on current events or about something I was doing, but of course was always conscious not to be too detailed in my whereabouts or private life since I knew the information was public. Unfortunately, I didn’t make the connection that these “tweets” would be showing up in search results alongside my name, which made me realize just how unimportant and unnecessary it was to post anything about myself. I proceeded to make my account private, delete my full name from settings and delete the majority of my tweets. Twitter, I told myself, would now only be used for following others and when appropriate, helping spread the message about issues that were important to me. (Just thought I would slip that last link in there about Stem Cell Research).

This leads me to the point of this blog post. As a graduating student (and a generally curious individual), every few months I like to Google my name to see what potential employers would see if they were to look me up before granting me an interview. Recently, I Googled myself again to see if there were any new developments other than the usual embarrassing results like old websites featuring awkward pictures of my friends and I from summer camp. Sure enough, with the increasing popularity of social media websites and their public nature, I saw several results relating to Twitter and the useless Tweets I posted. Though to my dismay, there was so much more.

I found that there are now companies that will take your information from Twitter (or any other public profile you may have) and create ANOTHER online account/profile under your name on their own website like http://thewhuffiebank.org/. ( I chose not to link to this site, since I do not support their actions.) So with the Whuffie Website and a few others like it, I now had multiple search results under my name that I did not create or directly consent to (Twitter of course told me this in the fine lines of privacy details). Worse than the taking of information without your direct consent, even if you edit your personal information to be more private or remove content you posted, the information will still remain on the external website as well in Twitter Headquarters’ power. Since I allowed what I posted to be public at one point, I no longer have a way to control that information.

One plus side is the characteristic of real-time web. If some Twitter posts are deleted, once you click on the search result relating to the post, the page will not exist. BUT Google has stepped up to ensure the information remains available for public viewing. When you Google something that no longer exists, there is often a “Catched Link” option available that revokes all benefits of deleting information.

Google explains,

“Google takes a snapshot of each page examined as it crawls the web and caches these as a back-up in case the original page is unavailable. If you click on the "Cached" link, you will see the web page as it looked when we indexed it.”

So this means that even though the web page or information does not exist anymore, you can still view what it looked like before it was deleted (or at the time when your search terms were relevant). Meaning, any content ever posted can always be retrieved.

Will we ever solely control our online identities again? We may think we have control to remove what we post, but unless we are a big, powerful company or have some sort of elite status, website owners/administrators won’t even be looking at requests to remove your information or delete a fictitious account that was made on your behalf. The issue of privacy and control will only become more pressing as increasing amounts of unsuspecting users upload content for personal use and increasing amounts of businesses find ways to use that content. With live software and real time web applications, one click of a button can take away any control or power you have over the content you just posted, thus your online identity.

It is imperative that Internet users explore all privacy regulations on the websites or technological programs one is making use of, because you never know when your future boss will be looking at the useless photo you posted of you and your dog sunbathing in the backyard or even worse, an online petition you “chose to support” because some company was able to compile enough of your information to convincingly use you.

On a lighter note, hopefully your future boss won't be crazy and judgemental! As long as you don't show any signs of having a poor work ethic or a "bad-ttitude"...