Think Before You Post

I remember watching a video clip on online safety for young people. Among a number of things, it encouraged caution when uploading photos, for example, on your Facebook profile or Twitter timeline.

Using simple cinematography, it showed a printed photo pinned to the wall. Some random stranger looks at it, takes it off the wall, and walks away. That same photo reappears, as if it had quickly regenerated itself. Another random stranger takes it and walks away. Then another, when the photo reappears yet again, and so forth.

In internet and social media parlance, it’s a simple upload-download process. Virtually anyone can do it.

Sites like Facebook and Google+ have become more sophisticated in protecting our privacy, that is, carving out what amounts to an e-fence around those whom we trust, and allow in, and those whom we keep out. But just as in the physical world, such a fence cannot really keep people out, if they’re intent on getting in. Moreover, we simply cannot expect 100% that those, whom we let in, will indeed respect our privacy 100%.

Case in point is star high school athlete Yuri Wright, as reported by Sports Illustrated.

Yuri Wright (image credit)

Apparently the young man unleashed a profanity-laced set of tweets, thinking that his tweets were in fact protected and were privy only to the 1600 followers whom he allowed inside his e-fence. Wrong! Word got around, and his Catholic school expelled him. Certain universities also stopped recruiting him.

Ah, so he’s a young person, who didn’t know that his boys-locker-room talk was essentially being piped through a bullhorn in an overcrowded gym. Which had loud speakers situated for others outside to hear, just as loudly and clearly as those inside.

‘Dumb move, kid!’ Well, that’s easy enough for us adults, who are in-the-know, to say. In actuality, though, it’s not fair for us to say that.

We two billion strong on the internet are fundamentally just coming to grips with the complexity, the power, and the risks of this very phenomenon called the internet. The blackout last week by Wikipedia and company, in protest of SOPA and PIPA, was, for me, emblematic of what we’re grappling with:  privacy, and how to protect it.

It’s either an exciting or terrible irony, depending on your point of view. Facebook touts itself, for example, as forging wide-ranging connections among people across the globe. Indeed it’s so easy to make friends with people, whom we’d probably never meet in person or otherwise know about. But this freedom and ease of connection make it so easy as well for any of us to jump that e-fence I mentioned earlier, cause a breach in our privacy, and create havoc inside our hallowed circles.

What to do?

Well, I’ll go back to that clip on online safety, which, at the end of the day, is not just for young people but also for everyone. Be careful about what you upload to begin with!

If something is really private for you, keep it off the internet. Then whatever you do post, keep it tasteful, respectful and constructive.

That clip?

Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!

Ron Villejo, PhD