Like the current hysteria over Facebook’s so-called threat to privacy, teeth gnashing over information sharing on social networks has often bespoken a nonsensical understanding of “privacy.”

The best definition of privacy, which comports with how most people use the term, comes from Merriam-Webster: “freedom from unauthorized intrusion”. If Internet users enjoy sharing more personal details with more people than in the past, as Zuckerberg claims, that hardly portends the “end of privacy.” It might herald a rise of exhibitionism with a concomitant ascendance of voyeurism, but these do not entail involuntary revelation of secrets.

Tweeting one’s boredom waiting for a flight at the airport doesn’t force him to tell of his anticipation of joining the Mile High Club or of his arrest upon landing for public indecency. He can choose what to share or not, and with whom to share it.

That’s why even discreet introverts like me needn’t fear Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or other social networking tools. On my Facebook privacy settings, I’ve toggled almost all visibility settings to “only friends” and disallowed public search engines from indexing my profile page. I still let other Facebook users search for me, but I could forbid that if I chose. On Twitter, even though I opt not to shield my tweets from public view, I could if I wished. And on both Facebook and Twitter, I resist sharing sordid personal trivia.

Individual users have ultimate responsibility for protecting their information from eyes they don’t want seeing it, as I have done. Some privacy hawks complain the default privacy settings of sites like Facebook are too open. But prudence demands users ensure beforehand their intended audiences are the recipients of their digital detritus.

If people inadvertently overshare because they couldn’t bother to check their settings first, that demonstrates more an epidemic of laziness than a crisis in privacy. (Not knowing how to verify privacy settings indicates unwillingness to learn about an application before using it, which to me qualifies as laziness.) And, if people decide to reveal embarrassing situations and later regret doing so, the fault is their own. Facebook, Twitter, and their kin can’t make their denizens act wisely.

Casting such banalities as invasions of privacy trivializes the concept.

When governments around the world pry into our lives by any means necessary, so diffusing the meaning of privacy could damage the cause of maintaining it. How fiercely would the populace hold onto “privacy” if it consists of preventing Mr. Frat Boy from carelessly telling the world about his drunken vomit-fest on Facebook?

I agree with social networking cynics that we must defend privacy at all costs. Toward that end, let’s remember to what privacy genuinely refers: “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” (to borrow from the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution).

Robust social networking such as on Facebook could help protect the essence of privacy. As Julian Sanchez of the Cato Institute notes, the most easily accessible information about people online usually takes the form of their own “[b]logs, Facebook or MySpace profiles, Twitter accounts, Last.fm pages, YouTube channels”. What we want the world to know about us, Sanchez says, is shoving aside potentially ugly or invasive chatter from others. So we can be our own public relations managers, wielding a potent arsenal to keep secure information we might not want everyone to know.

All this looking under the bed to slay the bogeyman of Facebook’s threat to privacy, however, distracts from how profoundly social networking facilitates human communication. Whereas, yes, this greater interconnectivity allows vapid effusions to travel at lightspeed onto our TweetDecks, it also lets friends and family who might be thousands of miles apart keep up with each other’s lives more easily than ever before. It provides distressed individuals an avenue to seek comfort they otherwise mightn’t know how to get. It simplifies the organization of aid to worthy causes, such as relief for victims of the earthquake in Haiti. It exposes the wrongdoing of authorities. Most famously, it has nurtured the Green Revolution that is agitating against Iran’s brutal theocracy.

I remember when people did not write blogs, upload YouTube videos, send tweets, or have Facebook profiles. Without such constant flow of ideas, stories, and news, the Internet felt more isolating and drab. Mark Zuckerberg and his peers are fulfilling the Internet’s promise as an “information superhighway,” which implies traffic zooming in both directions. I do not fear but embrace Zuckerberg’s world, and I look forward to seeing where it takes us next.

Facebook: slaying the privacy bogeyman is a post from Hypersyllogistic - Politics, Culture, Entertainment, Discussions, Blogs, Photos

Now everyone can have his privacy violated by the Huffington Post.

The Huffington Post has put up a feature it calls “Fundrace,” which allows users to search by address, city, name, occupation, or employer to find out who has made campaign donations of $200 or more, of which federal law requires public disclosure. On a whim, I did a vanity search for my name, even though I had only contributed $100 to the Ron Paul campaign.

Of course, I wasn’t in the results, but someone else who shares my name was: Jason Vines, vice president of corporate communications at Chrysler. Apparently, he has given $2,300 to the Mitt Romney campaign so far.

Whereas I find humorous the appalling political tastes of my alter ego, I also feel horror at the idea anyone on the Internet can discover the political activities of people who have donated as little as $200 to a candidate. The heretofore-mentioned federal campaign finance disclosure laws—which bear the understandable intent of revealing the machinations of special interests—have now facilitated violations of privacy for millions of Americans.

The Huffington Post admits such is its goal with its Fundrace mission statement:

Want to know if a celebrity is playing both sides of the fence? Whether that new guy you’re seeing is actually a Republican or just dresses like one? If your boss maxed out at that fundraiser or got comped? Whether your neighbor’s political involvement stops at that hideous lawn sign?

Thanks to efforts like those of the Huffington Post, one can no longer act politically on his beliefs—the sacred birthright of every American—and then keep his opinions private if he wishes to do so. Consequently, just for exercising his political liberties, he risks alienation from his friends, scorn of his family, termination of his employment, revenge from his candidate’s opponents, and retribution of more severe character. I wish that were an exaggeration, but “Angry in America” from U.S. News & World Report describes the relationship-breaking, rage-inducing hatred that can ensue from different political views even amongst ordinary people.

Inevitably, common knowledge of who supports which politicians will discourage Americans from backing the candidates of their choice. In the name of political decency, federal disclosure laws are demolishing the foundation of our political culture, the First Amendment, as well as undermining the mechanism of our electoral process, the secret ballot. (Does no one remember why states implemented the secret ballot in the first place?)

Of course, Congress could increase the monetary threshold beyond which campaigns would have to report donations and their sources. That way, the privacy of normal Americans donating a few hundred dollars would be safe. But equality before the law, the bedrock of freedom itself, demands legislation embody neither special restriction nor special treatment for any group of Americans. So, wealthy citizens deserve as much protection of their constitutional rights as everyone else does.

To preserve Americans’ privacy and liberty, then, campaign finance disclosure laws should be altogether eliminated. That would destroy “peeping tom” sites like Huffington Post‘s Fundrace, letting everyone feel safe in the knowledge their political beliefs won’t land them in trouble.

Say goodbye to political privacy is a post from Hypersyllogistic - Politics, Culture, Entertainment, Discussions, Blogs, Photos