Category — Blogiquette or On Blogging

Continuing the conversation about the blogosphere and social media.

Image: Ali T via Flickr

Do you remember Friendster?  It seems to have morphed into a gaming site, but a long time ago, it was Facebook for everyone who couldn’t get onto Facebook because they were too old.

Sites — like restaurants or stores — open and close all the time.  If they’re part of our daily world, it makes us sad because it signals change.  Though if we rarely frequented the site or restaurant or store, it doesn’t really factor beyond a sigh.

But it should.  At least, it should when it comes to social media sites where we have an account.

When a restaurant closes, it may sell off its tables and ovens and cookware.  When a store closes, it may sell off its merchandise.  And when an online site closes, well, if it’s in their terms of service, they can technically sell off… you.  Your data.  Your IP or intellectual property, which are your words and images.

Let’s take the case of Facebook, a solid giant who is going nowhere soon.  Maybe.  I mean, we have no clue if they’re going nowhere soon.  They could announce tomorrow that the site is underwater, and they’re going to bail.

What you upload right now to Facebook exists under the rules of the existing site, which are also subject to change at any time.  Even if they don’t change, you have given Facebook (and a lot of other sites have this caveat too) a transferable license to your “IP” or intellectual property.

By using or accessing Facebook, you agree to this Statement, as updated from time to time in accordance with Section 14 below.

…

1. For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (IP content), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.
2. When you delete IP content, it is deleted in a manner similar to emptying the recycle bin on a computer. However, you understand that removed content may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time (but will not be available to others).

To put that in simple English: we can use now or in the future anything you upload to Facebook.  If you delete it, it’s not really gone.  And in case you were wondering, Facebook will not officially give a range to a “reasonable period of time” when asked.  Which most likely means, “indefinitely.”

The part that gives me pause is the concept of transferability.  Because while Facebook may afford me certain privacy settings, what if Facebook enters a time period when they are trying to make their company solvent after financial collapse and they sell off their archive?  That is what happens with restaurants and stores — they sell off their merchandise.  And in this case, our data and our IP is what would be for sale.  Our data is what makes Facebook valuable in the first place.  What if the new site doesn’t believe in privacy settings, and everything I wrote over the years and every image I uploaded is suddenly made available to the public?  And what if this new company removes the delete button.  What then?

Is this far-fetched.  Yes.  But does it inform the way I use the site: absolutely.  The only site I trust is my blog, and that is because I own it.  I know it’s public.  And I take comfort in knowing that boundary definitively.  Whereas I don’t really know the boundaries with Facebook.  They could be here, they could be there… and it’s the not knowing that makes me uncomfortable.

There are those who say that our data or IP shouldn’t be the tradeoff for using a site like Facebook, but here’s the thing.  We’re not owed a Facebook.  We’re not owed a free Facebook where they host us and pay for our space on their servers and get nothing in return.  Restaurants don’t give us food out of the goodness of their hearts and stores don’t hand us jeans just because they like the cut of our jib.  They charge us.  And in the case of Facebook, the free site isn’t really free even if they never ask for money.  They ask you to pay in your data and IP.  You pay by giving up your privacy.

Do you ever consider the impermanence of sites?  Would you be comfortable right now with everything you’ve uploaded to Facebook if they sell their archives in the future and everything behind privacy settings suddenly becomes public?

So… yeah… still looking closely at the blogosphere and social media world.

 Image: Ali T via Flickr

The twins know that for the next several years or so, we have set up their accounts so we can see all of their online activity.  They don’t have social media accounts, but they do have email that runs through my email account.  And I can see their outgoing and incoming text messages.  I check their iPod regularly, and peer over their shoulder while they’re typing.  On one hand, they’re starting to balk at the lack of privacy.  And on the other hand, they love that they never have to worry about going through anything alone.  We are there to guide them as they socially make their way online, and the option of trackability is out of their hands.  They get the safety net afforded by parenting while still being able to roll their eyes with their friends and complain about us.  Win-win!

We know that in the future, we’ll have to turn over their accounts to them and remove these features.  Hopefully, by then, they’ll know how to comport themselves online.  They’ll know how to be clear to others how they want to be brought online.  And they can always ask us to step in and help them solve a particular problem while keeping the rest of their communication private.  But right now, we’re responsible for them, and if we’re going to be responsible, we need to be comfortable.  And part of our comfort comes from tracking their online movements; knowing the sites they visit, the people they write to, and what information they are sharing.

What becomes tricky is knowing the age we pull back.  It will obviously be different for each kid, but it’s hard to know when they’re really ready to be on their own.  I can see that they’re not ready now, and I can assume — based on what I know about teenagers — that our particular kids will likely be ready by 16 to be on their own online.  But it’s sort of like trying to figure out where the ocean meets the sky — where does the blue lighten into that shade we associate with the upper atmosphere vs. the darker blue closer to the water?

All I know is that it’s not emotionally healthy for a kid to be online at the twins’ age without any guidance, and it’s not emotionally healthy for a young adult to be online without any privacy.  That in between is sort of murky.

*******

Let’s say that you could put a device in your child that tracked their movements.  You could look at a screen and know they were in school or at daycare or at their friend’s house.  You could let them wander a bit more, feeling comfortable that you could find them again if they wandered too far or summon them home without panic.  And if the worst ever did happen — they were kidnapped, let’s say, or separated from you in a crowded space — you could find them again with relative ease.  If this device wasn’t something external that could be tossed aside but rather something internal (with proven safety in regards to health), like an RFID chip (though one that couldn’t easily be removed) it would be a priceless parenting tool.

If it were proven through years of research to be 100% safe in terms of health, I think a lot of people would opt for an RFID chip and the peace-of-mind it would bring.  I mean, your child could never be lost.  You would never have to go through needless worry.

But when would the right time be to remove said chip?  To let them wander freely in the world without that oversight?  I imagine most people would keep it through the teen years because it can be nerve-wracking to not know where your teen is, especially once they start driving.  Would it be when they graduated high school?  College?  Would you only track your child in a worst case scenario, or would you leave it on all the time, monitoring that they got to school, got to their friend’s house, were coming back home at night?  And what would you do with a child who often got into trouble?  Would you simply never turn off their device, especially if they had no clue it was in their body but you could use the tracking ability to stop them from making poor decisions?

If it was 100% safe, would you ever place an RFID chip in your child’s body?  Would you let them know it’s in there?  And when (if ever) would you turn it off in order to give them autonomy of their movements — online and off?

There are seven more posts about the book.  I’m not sure if I’m going to write them all back-to-back, or pause sometimes to talk about something else, but they all relate to the blogosphere and social media.  In other words, by being online, you can participate in the discussion.  The book itself is irrelevant in that regard.

All the posts are labeled “Opt-ions.”  The reason I divided the word as I have will make sense with the last post, which is the only other one I’ve written at this point.  So… uh… that’s how I know that it will make sense.

Image: Ali T via Flickr

So we’ll start with the concept of accountability.

When you sign up for Facebook, you agree to use your real name:

Facebook is a community where people use their real identities. We require everyone to provide their real names, so you always know who you’re connecting with. This helps keep our community safe … The name you use should be your real name as it would be listed on your credit card, driver’s license or student ID.

A bunch of people on my Friends list aren’t using their real names, and they’re clearly not using their real names, unless they’ve legally changed their name to match their blog’s title.  Some people are less clearly not using their real name.  I had someone send me a friend request, and I had no clue who it was until I saw the picture.  She was using her middle name as her last name since it was the sort of name that sounded a little last-name-ish.

I’m not sure how/if Facebook enforces their name rule; if people who aren’t using their real name as it appears on their credit card or driver’s license will have their name automatically changed on the site once the algorithm can link you to your real name based on an online purchase, since Facebook tracks you on non-Facebook sites.  If they’ll bump you from the site entirely, which I don’t think will happen because they need users.  Or if they’ll let it slide, figuring what harm does it do if people can’t identify you.

Except that they claim that using your real name keeps “our community safe.”  Well, that isn’t a small thing.  Safety.  I mean, if they believe this really comes down to safety, then shouldn’t they enforce that rule?

The Verge had a post a few years back about just that: the enforcement of Facebook’s rules and why they need you to be using your real name.  It’s an interesting read.

Facebook depends on its users to be honest. With 239,000 users for every Facebook employee, it’s logistically impossible to verify all the information that is submitted. Fake names, fake ages, fake interests — all these inaccuracies interfere with the company’s ability to accurately target advertisements. Facebook wants to build the world’s most comprehensive database of people. If the information is current and correct, Facebook could eventually become a place where people bank or vote or even file taxes. If it’s filled with errors, it nears uselessness — at least, as far as advertisers are concerned.

So, yeah, real names matter to Facebook.  Instead of focusing on the financial benefits for the company, one of the arguments made is that if we are all operating under our real name, accountable for our behaviour, it will help us make better choices.  We’ll think before we speak.  We’ll own our words and actions.

And that good behaviour could travel offline, ensuring that we won’t commit tiny crimes like stealing toilet paper from work, or larger crimes knowing that our actions will be tied to our names in a huge, transparent way.  How many people would have an affair or purchase porn knowing that in the interest of full transparency, everyone they know and love would know about their actions?  If all your activities were listed on your Facebook profile, and your profile was linked to your name, then it would follow that it would be a deterrent — at least with smaller, embarrassing-if-discovered actions.

But here’s the thing: if we know that idea is possible, even if it’s not in effect, why do we still continue to make bad choices?  Why don’t we live our lives as if everyone can know everything we say and do, in the same way that people drive slower through areas that could be policed by speed cameras, even when speed cameras aren’t there?

The Verge article sums up an interesting idea: “The real-name resistance could be significantly reduced, however, if real names benefited users as much as they benefit Facebook.”  And in the case I listed above, knowing how much you can trust the people around you, would go a long way in being beneficial to users.  You’d no longer need to guess whether someone is trustworthy.  You could look at their profile and know.

Do you think people should have to use their full, real name online — to comment, to use social media, to make purchases — and do you think in doing so, would it curb behaviour and make us into better versions of ourselves?  Do you think the comment section of certain posts would be filled with the same kind of bile if people were forced to be accountable for what they say under their real name?  Do you think anonymity brings out the worst in us?  Do you think you act differently when you think you’re being watched and monitored?

Last thoughts on the right to be forgotten.

So our first discussion was about interacting with huge entities such as Facebook or a government agency.  And the second discussion was really about distant relationships between two people: The concert-goer and Beyonce.  Me and my old college friend, John Smith.  People who may not know each other well, or at all.

Today we’re getting to the core: what about the people who love us?  The ones we interact with every day or who operate within our face-to-face world?  Our acquaintances and friends and family; the people who make up the circle that surrounds us.

Image: Jlhopgood via Flickr

*******

When a Jewish couple gets engaged, they sometimes have a te’naim, which means conditions.  Originally, it was a time for the two families to negotiate the details of the marriage, but Josh and I modernized the tradition and wrote our conditions or vows to each other on a piece of pottery.  We then smashed the pottery and gave a shard (in a glass box) to each member of our family.  We were symbolically giving them a tangible piece of our vows; of our relationship because, by getting married, we were including them on an intangible piece of our vows.

The reason pottery is broken at a te’naim is to symbolize the way the two families would be shattered — unable to be pieced back together in the same way — if the relationship between the couple were to change.  And it’s a reminder not to break the conditions; that trust can’t be put back together easily if people don’t uphold their end of the contract.

Marriages are obviously between two people, but we bring all sorts of people with us into our relationship.  I mean, I married Josh, but I got his parents and siblings and aunts and uncles and cousins.  I inherited his friends.  And the same thing happened in the other direction: he got everyone that I brought with me.  And then we started procreating so the kids were drawn into that circle, and we made more friends so all of those people have been sucked into the vortex of our relationship.

Does everyone else’s sun rise and set due to our marriage?  Of course not.  But haven’t you ever felt physically ill when a good friend tells you that their relationship is over?  A friend once told me that he was divorcing, and I remember sitting down on the edge of my bed, feeling gutted.  It wasn’t my marriage, and yet I felt personally invested in their happiness.  Part of my happiness was tied to their happiness.

Every time we interact with someone, grow close to them, it feels as if we hand them a piece of ourselves, just as I handed that shard of pottery to all of our family members.  Which means that once we start interacting with people, giving our love to our family and later our friends, we can never be completely whole.  Tiny pieces of us are scattered across the world, being figuratively carried by everyone who has come into our life.

Now add in social media.

Social media has done an amazing job making connections between two people who would never have met otherwise due to life circumstances.  For instance, Lori.  There was little chance that we would have met seeing that we live on two different sides of the country.  But we became super close after we met due to our blogs.  And now Lori owns a piece of my story, and I own a piece of hers.

And maybe you feel as if you own a piece of my story.  I certainly feel as if I own a piece of yours.  You’re not a blog.  You’re a human being who happens to write a blog.  I care about your story.  I email with you.  I joke around with you on Facebook.  I’ve cried with you.  Sometimes we step out from behind the computer and get together in the face-to-face world.  I’ve given away tons of little shards of myself — more than I maybe know since I have no clue how many people I’ve affected in this world.  And I’ve collected tons of little shards of other people — maybe more than they know since we don’t always have a clue how we’ve affected another person.

So… when it comes to that right to be forgotten, we can obviously stop writing our blog and slip away.  But what about all the people who read our story and interacted with us?  All the people who hold a figurative shard of my life, that I made a social contract with by reaching out in the first place.  Do they own our interaction or do I?  Do they have the right to write about me or mention old blog posts?  Or is it my right to pull away as much information as possible if I choose to be forgotten so I can shrivel away like the legs of the Witch of the East under Dorothy’s house?

Who owns the collective memories of our shared interactions?  I wrote the post, but you read the post: there are two sides to that experience.  If both of us own our interactions, do we have the right to upload any picture or make any statement online about another person, since we are presenting them as a person in our life.  In other words, we’re still the subject, and everyone else is a player on our stage.  How do you draw your social media lines when what we place online may be permanent in the case of certain sites and far-reaching?

Believe me, I’ve thought long and hard about this because what else am I doing with the Friday Blog Roundup beyond saying how something you wrote affected me?  How I carry that figurative shard of you that I collected by reading your post.  I make the choice — without asking you — to highlight your writing.  And maybe I’m overstepping a huge line when I look at it from this angle even if the act of blogging comes with the tacit permission to link.  You can remove your post, but now, by writing about it, it lives on the Internet unless I remove it too.  And then, really, neither of us can truly get rid of it because the Wayback Machine has probably already archived it.

So going back to discussing the book I’m reading without naming the book I’m reading. (I know — I’m annoying!  But as I said, email me if you want the name of the book before I’m ready to tie all of these questions to the book itself.)  Yesterday, we were talking about the idea of Internet entities or impersonal organizations “forgetting” us in the sense of having the ability to remove an account or information from the Internet.  I’ve been going in circles with this.

On one hand, the inability to remove the account or data is clearly within the terms of service, therefore, it’s user beware.  On the other hand, terms of service change.  When I first signed up for some of my accounts, I felt comfortable with the TOS.  Then the TOS changed.  Now I don’t feel comfortable with certain sites.  But removing my account is impossible.  Sure, I can delete the account, but all that does is limit my access and your access to my data.  It’s essentially like locking a stranger in my house.  Sure, other people can’t get into my house with the door locked, but I also can’t get into my house, and there is a stranger inside, rifling through my stuff.  When you look at it that way, deleting an account under those conditions doesn’t make a lot of sense.

So now there is another layer we need to discuss.

Sometimes people don’t choose to place their information on the Internet.  Sometimes, even if they didn’t open an account or post the information online, they get dragged onto the Internet.  There is always the chance that people could upload information or images about you, as was the case in the EU.  Should you be able to remove that information — be “forgotten,” so to speak?

So let’s spiral down into the question a little deeper, away from the powers that be — such as Facebook — and closer to the actions of individuals.

Image: Jlhopgood via Flickr

Let’s say that someone posted an embarrassing picture of you.  Your husband snaps a picture of you in mid-sneeze and uploads it to Facebook with the caption, “achoo!”  You should be able to have it removed, right?  I guess I’m starting with an assumption that no one is shaking their head right now and saying, “I may not love it, but that puppy is staying in place.”

We’re all on the same page with this, right?  We’d want the ability to remove an unflattering picture of ourselves that someone else uploads.

Then why did Buzzfeed refuse to remove Beyonce’s picture when asked by her publicist, and why did this become a major news story in 2013 rather than just have the images disappear?  Instead, the unflattering pictures were turned into a meme and spread even faster across the Internet where they are now so scattered that removing them entirely would be next to impossible.   And the media mocked Beyonce’s publicist for having the audacity to try to remove images.  People — again — decried this as Internet censorship.  That Beyonce was trying to rewrite reality by removing these online images.

Doesn’t Beyonce have the same rights as a private citizen?  I mean, yes, she’s a performer in public, but technically, a librarian also conducts her profession in a public space, unlike a school teacher, who works in a private space.  We know that it wouldn’t be cool to take and post grotesque pictures of a librarian, and yet it’s fair game to do so to a singer?  I don’t know.  That doesn’t sit right with me.  Rights aren’t a pu-pu platter.  We can’t say one job is public and the other is not when both are conducted in public spaces.

So if it’s okay to take pictures of Beyonce if we pass her on the street — and we sort of have that social contract that we can document our encounter with a public figure by snapping a picture — why is it not okay to start snapping pictures of my librarian when I go to return a book?  Because it’s not okay with the librarian.  And it is okay with Beyonce, even when she’s not in the middle of doing her job by performing.  Like when she’s enjoying down time with her family.  And by “okay” I don’t mean that it’s actually okay.  I just mean that paparazzi aside, I think most people wouldn’t think twice of snapping a picture of a celebrity without asking, but we do think twice about snapping a picture of a librarian without her permission.

And let’s just say that we did snap a picture of a librarian as we handed her our book, and her mouth was hanging open and her eyes were rolled back in her head because we caught her mid-sneeze.  We — for the most part — wouldn’t upload a clearly unflattering picture of a private citizen, but it’s clear from the Beyonce shots that we would if the person is a public figure…

We start going down a rabbit hole of what is private and what is public.  And who is a private citizen and who is public figure.  Are public figures ever private citizens when it comes to social media?  And social media, along with reality television, has blurred that line so much that it now isn’t clear where being a public figure starts and stops.  Is a contestant on the Bachelor a public figure?  Is a blogger a public figure?  Only if she has a certain amount of page views?  What about the Twitterati?  Facebook famous?

All I know is that the speed, agility, and anonymity of social media makes it very difficult to pull back your existence online once it gets started.  And you may not be the person who gets your own online existence started.

*******

I’m always shocked when I go on Facebook to seek out an old friend and I can’t find them.  I’ve been searching for one old college friend for years.  There are exactly three places he appears online.  He has a LinkedIn account.  He has a freestanding website where he has posted his resume.  And he has a property listing in his name.  No Facebook.  No Twitter.  No blog.  No Instagram.  At least, none under his real name.

Which is sort of the point, right?  We can be anonymous online.  He could be on Facebook and Twitter.  He could have a blog and post pictures to Instagram; all under a fake name.  And unless he told me about them, I wouldn’t necessarily find them without a lot of intense sleuth work.

There are dozens of reasons why someone would want to blog anonymously or go on social media under an assumed name, very few of them nefarious in nature.  One thing social media can do is provide you with a break from the past.  My college friend — let’s call him John Smith — doesn’t want to be found, and therefore, he can’t be found.  I mean, yes, he can be found in the sense that I wrote him via the email address he provided on his resume and we’re back in touch.  But, you know, you can be forgotten on the Internet if you try hard enough; forgotten by people who knew you in the face-to-face world as you disappear into the anonymity of the Web.  Until people remove that right.

Because there is nothing to stop me from creating a site called Where is John Smith, and post pictures of my old friend from college.  I could start a Facebook group asking people to help me in locating him.  I could tweet out memories of our college antics.  I have some fairly embarrassing pictures of John Smith, and the only thing stopping me from uploading them is human decency and a belief that even if I took those photos and own those photos, they aren’t my photos to upload.  It steps over a line I’m not willing to step over.  I may really really really want to find John Smith, but beyond asking mutual friends if they’ve been in touch with him, I would clearly be going against his wish to stay offline if I forcefully brought him online.

Even if I’m the fool and he is online under an assumed name, I would still be going against his wish to stay offline under his real name.  And that is legitimate too.

People rarely trespass and hurt feelings when they follow someone else’s lead.  But how many people actually think that long and hard when it comes to social media?  I know that I mess up all the time.  It is hard to be mindful of others 100% of the time, but the fact that the stakes are high on social media 100% of the time requires that we be mindful 100% of the time.  And it just can’t be humanly done.   Being mindful and careful is the antithesis of social media.  5000 tweets would stream by in the time it would take you to come to the conclusion of whether someone would want you to post about them online.  Social media doesn’t wait or slow down.

So where does this leave us?  With the thought that we can try to slip away from our present or our past, but social media is making it very very hard.

So I’ll wrap up this chunk of the discussion by asking how we determine who owns the right to be brought onto the Internet so we can be immortalized in a medium where nothing ever really disappears (even the things we think we delete).  Is it the picture takers who owns that moment in Beyonce’s life and the ability to upload it for all to see or is it Beyonce?  Is it John Smith who owns the right to remain off the Internet or is it my right to look for him?  How do we have our own fun on the Internet while not having it at the expense of others who would like to have control over whether or not they can slip through the online world, unseen?  Or, if not unseen, then at least not in an unflattering way.

And yes, I’m pausing the conversation again to discuss this, but we’re digging deeper in the next post.  I warned you that it was a rabbit hole, friends.