1: Response to Mark Zuckerberg

Analyse critically the following statement by Mark Zuckerberg while comparing it to privacy issues raised by online social networking collaborative practices:

Video Credit: “Mark Zuckerberg on Making Privacy Controls Simple”, uploaded to YouTube by theofficialfacebook

“When people are in control of what they share, they begin to share more”.

The reality of the internet and of social networking practices is that often we are not in control of what we share or what is shared about us. Indeed, any person may publish something about us or post an incriminating photo, and suddenly this photo spreads or the rumour about us, through repetition becomes fact (Ruane, 2005: 6-7). Long standing ideas or enduring assertions after a period of time are taken as truth and slowly we cease to be who we are in everyday life – the well mannered student or the competent lawyer – but with every view of the published material, we become the drunken buffoon, the irresponsible teacher, the un-hireable job applicant.

Zuckerberg’s assertion that we can ever be in control of what is shared is a fallacy, and this casts a dark shadow over the remainder of his argument.

While occurring on a personal level, this phenomenon has also occurred on numerous occasions on a corporate scale. Consider the piece of information that circulated the internet in 2004, that Bananas from Costa Rica carry a flesh-eating bacteria (Ruane, 2005: pp2-4). Let me begin by telling you that this story was a hoax of unknown origin. It is categorically false. And yet though false, these rumours still exact a price. The price in this case was a $30 million dollar loss in sales for the banana sales industry (Ruane, 2005: pp3).

Original Image Credit: Eva Rose

Information is not what is being shared over Social Networking sites but more often than not what is being circulated is rumour, gossip and hearsay – all of which are taken out of context and assumed to be absolute truth.

Unlike the gossip which circulated the halls of your highschool, which was present one day and then gone the next, the gossip which circulates the internet is permanent.

You need look no further than the story of Ghyslain, perhaps better known as “the star wars kid” (Solove, 2007: 44-49) to witness the effect of permanence on the internet. An embarrassing video of Ghyslain was posted without his knowledge or consent. It spread globally in an instant and was picked up by all manner of sites. It was reported on by news stations in many different countries, it was satirised in South Park and Arrested Development, it was mashed, edited and re-posted hundreds of times and was the topic of millions of blogs posts and comments. The video on YouTube is one of the most watched to ever be uploaded. All this data will never disappear. Some of it might be deleted, but it will never go away.

And this, apparently, is the world which Zuckerberg seems so excited to create – a word with no privacy – under the guise of aiding communication and helping people work together.

“A man’s character is what he is; a man’s reputation is what others imagine him to be” (Solove, 2007: 33).

This is not a world in which truth may become more evident or in which problems may be solved – it’s a world of constant misunderstanding, construing of fact and misinformation.

The very “freedom” which Zuckerberg suggests social networks provide is in fact being threatened rather than enhanced by the greater flow of “information”.

Given the ease at which information can be recorded and spread, there will be more instances when information we want to keep on a short leash will escape from our control, and once it is beyond our grasp, it’s everyone’s to share. So far I have focused only on small pieces of information, like photos and Facebook posts, but consider the wealth of information currently being accumulated by Google, whose ideology is fundamentally the same as that of Zuckerberg.

Indeed, the grand plan of Google [and Facebook alike] is to achieve the vision in which“any kind of information will be accessible to anybody” (Hungry Beast, 2010).

Google controls database searches, scans & files information sent through G-Mail and establishes your interests and social interactions through their own social Network, Google Buzz – which has been involved in a number of controversies lately relating to abuses of privacy (Hungry Beast, 2010). Disturbingly, two of the earliest investments made by Google were in genetics testing companies Navigenics and 23andMe.

Consider then the fact that Google may have a dossier on you, with your internet searches, your physical attributes, your interests, information you have sent to others through G-mail and even your DNA and genetic information. This is what we don’t consider when Zuckerberg speaks of the joys of “spreading information”.

This is the world envisaged by Zuckerberg, one in which everything is known, every personal detail is recorded and filed for later reference. It is a world in which the private life which you live is as public as if you were on The Truman Show and increasingly it’s the world in which we live.

And with his ideology, I could not be more opposed.

 

References:

Solove, D. J., (2007), ‘How the free flow of information liberates and constrains us’ in The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumour and Privacy on the Internet, New Haven, CT, USA: Yale University Press (pp17-49)

Ruane, J,M. (2005), “When Should We Trust What We Know? Why Research Methods?” In: Essentials of Research Methods. A Guide to Social Science Research, Malden, MA: Blackwell, (pp 1-15).

Video: Unknown Author (2007), “googles (sic) dark side – google conspiracy”<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNofb-OlZyQ&feature=related> accessed 8/4/2011

Video: Hungry Beast, 2010, “Joining the Dots: Google”, <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv4j4bguYYk> accessed 8/4/2011

Solove, D. J., (2007), ‘How the free flow of information liberates and constrains us’ in The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumour and Privacy on the Internet, New Haven, CT, USA: Yale University Press (pp17-49)

Ruane, J,M. (2005), “When Should We Trust What We Know? Why Research Methods?” In: Essentials of Research Methods. A Guide to Social Science Research, Malden, MA: Blackwell, (pp 1-15).

Video: Unknown Author (2007), “googles (sic) dark side – google conspiracy”<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNofb-OlZyQ&feature=related> accessed 8/4/2011

Video: Hungry Beast, 2010, “Joining the Dots: Google”, <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv4j4bguYYk> accessed 8/4/2011