Postaday for May 30th: Do Not Disturb. How do you manage your online privacy? Are there certain things you won’t post in certain places? Information you’ll never share online? Or do you assume information about you is accessible anyway?
My general rule of thumb is: don’t put it online unless you want your mom to see it. Note that I didn’t say “unless you’re okay with the possibility your mom might see it.” The distinction may be subtle, but it’s a necessary one, because sometimes things end up on Facebook by accident. And yes, your mom is on Facebook.
This is not Facebook’s fault, by the way. A person who very much cares about his online privacy has tools and options available to make sure only certain people see certain things. But these are people we’re talking about. It’s a simple as hitting “print screen” alt-tab, and ctrl-V. Voila, that secret thing is now on Facebook, tagged with your name, and your mom is looking at it.
Some folks trust their own skills and the people they interact with. I don’t. I’m not paranoid— I’m fairly certain no one is interested in cyber-following me until I slip up, post a picture of my bare ass, and then use it to make my mom uncomfortable. The truth is, if someone wanted to do that, they could just as easily do something nifty with free, on-line photo editing tools and make me look foolish. But there you go, that’s my defense. “Mom, you know my profile is public and I don’t post anything, even privately. That thing Dale sent you? What do YOU think?”
I do NOT trust my own skills when it comes to keeping things private. I slip up all the time. I get lazy, forget to opt-in or opt-out as appropriate, and the next thing I know, Facebook is flooded with my latest uploads to 500px. I then have to go in and delete those. Not because pictures of flowers and sunsets are embarrassing, but because spamming friend’s in-boxes with pictures IS embarrassing.
And let’s be clear, when I say “Facebook,” I don’t mean just Mr. Zuckerberg’s little website. That’s just the best synecdoche for social media as a whole. (Or is it metonymy? I always get those confused.) I don’t tweet things that would get me fired, I don’t share provocative content on Tumblr, I don’t write abusive things on YouTube comments.
Not that I have anything to say on those platforms that would be contentious in the first place. But one man’s provocative is another man’s seditious, and who’s to say what could be used against me in the future. No, I play it mucho safe. And I wish everyone else did too. I wish everyone would only post things that they would want their mothers to see. Not because I want to censor anybody, far from it. When I post political rants about the hypocrisy of some of our nation’s leadership, that’s nothing to be ashamed of.
I’m talking about those trolls, evil little kids bent on making the internet a toxic place. I guess I don’t have much respect for anonymity, is what I’m saying. I appreciate that there are some people, around the world, who would put themselves in real physical danger if they signed their screeds with their real names. But those people aren’t saying anything their mothers would be ashamed of.
For the rest of you, I say: if you’re not willing to put your name under it, don’t post it.