OLJ Assignment: Privacy and Trust on the Internet

Shirley Garcia

Student ID #: 11468539

Info 506: Social Networking for Information Professionals

Lyn Hay—Fall 2010

Articles Read: 

Raynes-Goldie, K. (2010). Aliases, creeping, and wall cleaning: Understanding privacy in the age of Facebook, First Monday, 15(1), 4 January. Available http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2775/2432 
Davis, L. (2009). 8 tools to track your footprints on the Web, February 1. Available http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/8_tools_to_track_your_footprin.php
Harris, C. (2010). Friend me?: School policy may address friending students online, School Library Journal, 1 April. Available http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6724235.html

Privacy when using social media tools has always been a big concern for me. Regardless of guidelines regarding how these tools are supposed to be used and how information is stored, it is not incredibly difficult to understand that there are ways around these rules and the devices used to supposedly insure privacy. Personally, I feel that the best way to avoid any difficulty is to restrict what you share on these tools. As far as sharing information (pictures, thoughts, comments, personal/background information) is concerned, I feel that no one should upload or post anything that they would not feel comfortable letting the world at large see. Since, quite honestly, when a user adds information to the internet, that is essentially what they are doing. Privacy blocks are weak and are easy to circumvent. Years from now, this information will still be floating around somewhere out there in a virtual land that cannot be adequately controlled.

Raynes-Goldie’s article only provides support for my thoughts. It is a virtual world, so it’s not quite real. It is filled with illusory substance and half-truths. Can it be fun, educational, real life enhancing? Sure. Can it be used as a tool for creating chaos in the wrong hands? Absolutely. Bullying, harassment, stalking…all can be made easier in this virtual world which is so often treated as a harmless tool that is removed from real life.

Davis’ article just made me think of how ironic it is that individuals who are posting personal information are concerned about who is seeing this information. If the concern is there, why put this information out there in the first place? I can understand young adolescents doing this due to a lack of adequate abstract thinking skills, which impairs the ability to understand the ramifications of present actions on the future, regardless of attempts to educate. I cannot understand this behavior from individuals who are supposed to be able to understand this form of thinking and the consequences of various behaviors.

Within school/library settings, professionals should not wait for guidelines to be made, like those in Harris’ article. One must think of how they would interact with students outside of the virtual world. Proper conduct is proper conduct. Just because it is not face-to-face does not make the encounters any less meaningful.