Special thanks to Jeff Pulver and the 140Conf for providing the opportunity to share these ideas.

Yesterday, I watched/listened to a fantastic discussion on Privacy & Publicness from Supernova 2010 featuring danah boyd and Jeff Jarvis.  It was a casual and very informative conversation about an important social issue, with powerful consequences on how we decide to live.

What Is Privacy?

If there’s a buzzword out there, it’s privacy.  Both Boyd and Jarvis agreed that “privacy” doesn’t have a concrete definition.  There’s no consensus yet on what “privacy” means when one is talking about Internet activity.  Now, that’s a problem — not having a consensus on the definition.  However, there is a great opportunity here.  Now we can have the much-needed social and cultural conversation about what “privacy” means to people when they’re carrying on their lives online.

Boyd explained that “privacy” as she’s discovered through her research, seems to comprise three general spheres for people.  One privacy sphere is security.  Privacy depends on a system and the promises made to people who use the system.  Another privacy sphere is identifiability — all that data that is collected about us when we do anything electronic.  The last sphere is “personally embarrassing information” — the things that one doesn’t want others to see or know.

I like Boyd’s description of these different meanings for privacy because, well, it shows that the elements of privacy depend on expectations in different spheres.  What’s the information that a person wants to protect?  How does the information flow into the world?  Those are the questions that may influence the decision about what kind of online and/or electronic interactions in which a person may choose to participate.  What is at stake?  The answers to such questions will determine what privacy is going to mean to different people, about different information, and in different forms.

Jarvis examines privacy as a legal concept.  The privacy concept grows from a fearful response to the unknown, which is new technology in this case.  People start hollering about privacy when they don’t know what is going to happen to information about them or created by them or created for them.  People want to control what is revealed.  When a technology appears that challenges this control, lawmakers can act irrationally and against the public interest, even when the lawmakers believe they are acting in the public’s best interest.

What Is Publicness?

I had never heard this word before listening to this discussion.  (It’s as if they had to make it up because “publicity” was already taken, and has so much attached to it anyways [press, marketing, TMZ.])  I would define publicness as a status or a position in which information and data are available and accessible instead of hidden.  Publicness is the default option for people who believe (complete) transparency should be the default.

Now, that sounds a little scary to me.  Jarvis, however, described publicness in a way that is more well-reasoned and nuanced than by others who claim almost everything should be shared and available to anyone who wants to see it.  Jarvis explained that the increased emphasis on privacy would actually harm the public because privacy reduces the size of the public sphere.  Privacy reduces the quantity, and maybe even the quality, of public goods available.

Jarvis believes publicness provides benefits to society.  His examples include public spaces, public/social education on cultural issues, and the public domain (in a non-copyright sense.  Although, it still works in a copyright sense.)  He advocates transparency as the default position because it protects the public generally, whether through the accountability of governments or corporations or through the “theory of mutually assured humiliation.”

Now, I agree that transparency should be the default with some institutions, but I don’t think that will work for individuals.  Consequences for an individual seem so much heavier than consequences for government and corporations, which are protected in ways that an individual isn’t.  (Basic example — physical violence).  Corporations and governments are only as powerful as we legally allow them to be.  We can create them, so we can demand that they be transparent.  The same is not true for individuals.

A very thoughtful example that Jarvis gave of an irrational government/legal reaction to technology was Germany’s issues with Google Maps’ Street View.  German legal authorities stopped Google from taking pictures of buildings, and even I thought that maybe that was a good thing.  But Jarvis made an excellent point: the government was telling people who could take pictures of buildings on the street, things that didn’t have intellectual property protection, things that we can all see with our own eyes.  Right now, they’re foiling Google in what they believe is society’s privacy interest.  Would they foil the citizenry next in what they believe is society’s privacy interest by telling people that they can’t take pictures of things they can see with their own eyes?  What an excellent example of the shrinking public sphere.

Failed Expectations

Of course, Facebook’s privacy settings were a topic in this talk.  The controversy, according to Boyd, arose when people’s expectations did not gel with reality.  People believed that only their friends, within the Facebook community, could see what they were sharing, even though a little examination of their settings and Facebook’s stated policies would have indicated otherwise.  People had notice, and they still got mad.

Once expectations and reality clash, then the privacy policy fails, even if it is explicitly posted somewhere.  I agree, because in this country the customer is always right.  Business has to respond and adapt, and Facebook did.One could argue that just by putting things on the Internet, that any person’s expectation of privacy is simple-minded.  I wouldn’t completely disagree, but Facebook presents itself as a network of friends, and there is privacy among friends.  One could also argue that Facebook is hypocritical because the Facebook public is not the general public.  People have to be members; if Facebook advocates sharing everything with everyone and widespread sharing and transparency, then why the membership requirement?  It’s an issue of the public vs. a public.

So What Now?

We demand a lot from our online experiences.  We want control over our information, our original content, our thoughts, and our reputations.  We want control over who can access this information.  We want safe online spaces to share information with select people.  We want to avoid crime and humiliation.  We want to learn.  We want to protect.

Perhaps we are demanding too much when it comes to privacy and the Internet.  Maybe we’re trying to have it both ways — putting personal/private goods into a very public arena and expecting those things to stay personal.  The privacy discussion is where we can really figure out what realistic responsibilities and expectations are.

Start with this talk.

Since this is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Follow The Prince & The Angela Shelton Foundation have been working on several ways to provide awareness, recognition, and support for the SAAM community.  Their solutions ignited the following:

• Changing Avatar to age of abuse
• Outreach in community boards to sweep perpetrators
• Story-telling via twitter
• Online Art-Auction for art
• Army of Angels Blog-A-Thons
• Live-Streaming Fundraiser Event

Leading up, Angela will be speaking at Jeff Pulver’s 140 Conference in NYC.  Where she will tweet her speech in real-time on how 1 tweet can make a difference.  Then starts The Angela Shelton Twitter Week which is a time to share stories of healing and transformation.  We will follow 3 powerful stories of male and female survivors for the whole week.

Angela Shelton will start us off during her live Sunday Show on April 24th and recap on the following Sunday.

We will be using the hash tags
#NEVERAGAIN
#ITOLD
#ASDAY10 for Angela Shelton Day 2010
#AOA for Army of Angels

Follow @angelashelton @survivormanual and @thearmyofangels

This event is free to be a part of Angela Shelton Day but to get an official Angela Shelton Day Twitter Ticket - give whatever you can to support the foundation. No need to buy a ticket if you don’t have the money. Twittering is free!

To follow up and extend this into May, which is my birthday month , The Foundation is having an auction, dance party, live music, live art, and fundraising!  Please donate to the event and join us on Eventbrite.