Privacy - very.
Anonymity - not so much.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
[quote]DJHT wrote:
[quote]Professor X wrote:
[quote]DJHT wrote:
So X you are saying there should be no privacy? That you have an online tag that allows anybody to see who you are, where you are, how much you have, etc? I understand and agree that privacy allows people to slander and be assholes, however what about theft of your identity?[/quote]
I am not saying there should be NO privacy, but I am saying that I am not sure what the solution is to random anonymous people fucking up your personal life simply because they can.
If you own a business or have a professional degree, your info is already out there for the public if they know where to look…but things like facebook and youtube allow criminals and assholes to connect the dots easily to locate you.
How do we stop that from happening other than having some type of way to find someone after they put something on the internet that can hurt you?
I like my privacy…but I get stalked more than most on this forum and I doubt people would continue to act like that if knew who they were.[/quote]
Agreed, I am just wary for my own personal privacy.
What alternative though Internet Police? My little sister got hazed and attacked through the net her first year of college 5-6 years ago. It crushed her self esteem etc.
I again agree with what your point is, but stalker is one thing stealing all you have is another. I know that is probably irrational fear but friend of mine’s wife had her identity stolen. Not an easy thing to fix. Internet stalking is more of a social stigma.[/quote]
Identity theft is a major concern…and should be for everyone. I am not sure what the solution is…I just know that the way the internet currently is can not last forever. The more business is done on line, the less you can expect for everything to be completely anonymous.
Facebook is showing this now since employers are now know to look at that site for potential hires. Now, you may have thought that racist comment you made last year was funny as hell…but if it keeps you from making 80K this year, you just may stop being so “internet free”.
[/quote]
Privacy is essential for personal safety, and the safety of those you care about. On the other hand I agree with you totally about anonymity online giving a people a voice that they would NEVER use in the real world.
At the moment though, the internet is a personal privacy shitstorm. The simple solution though is to be fucking careful about what you choose to put online and what you connect it with. I think that at the moment the vast criminal potential posed by the internet has yet to be unlocked, for the simple reason that the people who would make most use of it have not advanced enough, apart from a few east european organised crime networks. Even with the utmost care though, its getting harder to protect yourself.
Wait till googles face recognition features get kicked off. Then every crackhead who can use a camera phone and google will be able to find out where you live and your habits with some enterprising work after he’s clocked your nice car/watch/wife and decides him and his buddies want a piece.
The below article is old but relevant given how Facebook is an agent of change.
Facebook’s Zuckerberg Says The Age of Privacy is Over
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebooks_zuckerberg_says_the_age_of_privacy_is_ov.php
I have yet to hear personal safety discussed much.
Then again, the ability to be alone with your own thoughts seem equally arcane.
This is a blog I came across.
He calls out and follows Hells Angels criminal activity. He also does it anonymously.
I think anonymity here is pretty important. He’s pretty funny.
http://gangstersout.blogspot.com/
So would an ID that consolidated an individuals activity on the net which could lead to greater accountability (at least legal) but allowed for anonymity, in other words the ID is not necessarily made up of your name, be some sort of solution?
^ No, how would it lead to accountability? Either you are known or you are not known. Need to explain more Tex.
If your movements across the net, or at least postings, could be tracked back to an ID which contains your personal information but only available to, say law enforcement, then you could be held legally accountable for your actions without having to expose your name in every transaction. Sort of like a single use credit card.
Note: I do not want any sort of ID. Accountability would be nice. however.
What sort of actions should one be held accountable for on the internet?
what they write?
pictures they post?
websites they visit?
items they buy?
people they talk to?
???
I guess for me there should be legal accountability for anything already illegal. Posting videos of illegal acts, like the thread about people videoing the attack at the DC subway (and others). All those involved, including those video taping, should be held accountable for their actions. Also, those who bully/defame should be held accountable. What that is, I am not sure. I think a apology that is tagged on each defaiming post would be enough.
But you are right in your questions. While accountability would be nice, once your get rid of any anonymity a lot more comes into question. We are already tracked online by the search engines we use and are linked to our ISP. I guess the question might be do we want the status quo (where our actions can be monitored) or a more formal ID were people KNOW that they can be easily monitored.
The equivalence of the video camera in the convenience store - it is there to remind people to act properly as it is to maybe catch theft.
^ Again it comes down to who has access to and police activity on the net. If it is out there, then some computer genius MF can crack it. Do we want our Govt to control this? Do you want the FBI to have access to all your personal information and track what you do on the internet? I just dont know, will flippant remarks made be investigated costing money?
This just makes me angry.
The mention of the BB suicide is scary. Stop and think about it for a second - the Internet is full of bullshit. People claim all kinds of fake crap and pull all types of stunts to get attention. Can you really imagine having to pick up the phone and call the cops every time you’re online and someone says, “I’m going to kill XYZ”, or “OMG I can’t believe you said that I’m going to kill myself”, because if you don’t and they actually do that, you were an accessory?
“Hello, 911, I’m on the Internet and someone just said they’re going to kill themselves. Again.”
Fail to do that, jackass actually does something stupid, you go to jail for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Let’s not create more rules people aren’t going to follow, let’s just accept personal responsibility and stay off the Internet if you’re not capable of handling it.
Sheesh.
[quote]Tex Ag wrote:
Maybe we all need to read up on post-structuralism; from: Post-structuralism - Wikipedia
* The author's intended meaning, such as it is (for the author's identity as a stable ''self'' with a single, discernible ''intent'' is also a fictional construct), is secondary to the meaning that the reader perceives. Post-structuralism rejects the idea of a literary text having a single purpose, a single meaning, or one singular existence. Instead, every individual reader creates a new and individual purpose, meaning, and existence for a given text. To step outside of literary theory, this position is generalizable to any situation where a subject perceives a sign. Meaning (or the signified, in Saussure's scheme, which is as heavily presumed upon in post-structuralism as in structuralism) is constructed by an individual from a signifier. This is why the signified is said to 'slide' under the signifier, and explains the talk about the ''primacy of the signifier.''
cliff notes:
-what the author meant is less important than what what the reader thinks it means[/quote]
I don’t know about this. Seems to be one of those things that applies only to intellectual games (or law, lol).
I figure that I, as an author of some type of statement (or ‘‘text’’), can have a specific meaning intended which I am trying to communicate. If the reader thinks it means something other than the meaning I intended, then the reader is mistaken, and has misinterpreted the statement (or ‘‘text’’), either as a result of my poor communication skills or them being an idiot.
Case in point:
If Professor X tells me to eat a lot to get big, and that I may need to hold some bodyfat to put on a decent amount of muscle, and I interpret that to mean ‘‘eat hamburgers and get fat’’, have I "creat[ed] a new and individual purpose, meaning, and existence for [the] given text’’ or am I just a dumbfuck with no reading comprehension skills?
On another note, I think that privacy is very important and should be protected at all costs. Anonymity is another thing entirely though, so for the topic at hand, I’m not sure which you’re discussing.
I do believe that I should be able to control access to personal information. However, I also agree that there should be some accountability for things on the internet.
Tough call as to how to balance the two.
[quote]Squiggles wrote:
This just makes me angry.
The mention of the BB suicide is scary. Stop and think about it for a second - the Internet is full of bullshit. People claim all kinds of fake crap and pull all types of stunts to get attention. Can you really imagine having to pick up the phone and call the cops every time you’re online and someone says, “I’m going to kill XYZ”, or “OMG I can’t believe you said that I’m going to kill myself”, because if you don’t and they actually do that, you were an accessory?
“Hello, 911, I’m on the Internet and someone just said they’re going to kill themselves. Again.”
Fail to do that, jackass actually does something stupid, you go to jail for being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Let’s not create more rules people aren’t going to follow, let’s just accept personal responsibility and stay off the Internet if you’re not capable of handling it.
Sheesh.
[/quote]
On that BB suicide issue, I think the fault lies in people cheering him on and making jokes WHILE HE DIED. It isn’t that they just didn’t call for help, it is that they made it a joke and kept doing it even after the police showed up at the house.
They act like that because they think there are no repercussions for acting that way.
Like I said, it is the same reason I see “nigger” on this site and references to black men being gangbangers simply because they are black more than I ever heard from a white person in my entire life.
They feel safe behind the computer screen.
^ X where does the responsibility lie though? That still allows for the safe guard of the individual. To me in resides in the company running the site, if they allow its “members” to display this type of behavior. Only way I can see balancing both privacy vs accountability.
[quote]DJHT wrote:
^ X where does the responsibility lie though? That still allows for the safe guard of the individual. To me in resides in the company running the site, if they allow its “members” to display this type of behavior. Only way I can see balancing both privacy vs accountability. [/quote]
Hey, I agree. I don’t understand how a site could allow that to happen unless it was completely unmoderated. The moment it became clear that he wasn’t moving, that thread should have been shut down and the cops should have been called…but that didn’t happen. BB.com left that thread up until they got complaints about it after the boy died.
More than anything, what gets to me is the mentality of someone who would take that as a joke to start with. I just don’t understand that.
But then, much of the same bullshit occurs right here on this site in regards to people writing shit that they would never even want their own family to hear.
X, I never honestly heard or saw about this kid suicide on BB.com. How is there not legal action for the site to be shut down or anything? When did this happen?
[quote]DJHT wrote:
X, I never honestly heard or saw about this kid suicide on BB.com. How is there not legal action for the site to be shut down or anything? When did this happen? [/quote]
It was less than two years ago. They erased the thread and any signs of it after it started making the papers. I doubt you can find much on it on that site now. You may be able to find a news article though.
One of the site forum members called the police after the boy didn’t move but no moderators did anything until after word got out and the publicity started growing.
^ Wow that is fucked up, I constantly work on my kids and there interpersonal skills. We have become a society that can only communicate through electronic media. To me this depersonalization is what is fostering this type of behavior. I am always telling my kids to answer the damn phone and talk to me. I cant text a fucking novel while I drive in Houston.
Back on topic BB.com should be shut down and fined through the fucking roof for creating an environment that is yelling fire in a theatre type mentality.
[quote]Tex Ag wrote:
I guess for me there should be legal accountability for anything already illegal. Posting videos of illegal acts, like the thread about people videoing the attack at the DC subway (and others). All those involved, including those video taping, should be held accountable for their actions. Also, those who bully/defame should be held accountable. What that is, I am not sure. I think a apology that is tagged on each defaiming post would be enough.[/quote]
You do realize that recording something isn’t illegal right?
You do realize that when someone documents someone doing something illegal, that now they could be held accountable?
[quote]MattyG35 wrote:
[quote]Tex Ag wrote:
I guess for me there should be legal accountability for anything already illegal. Posting videos of illegal acts, like the thread about people videoing the attack at the DC subway (and others). All those involved, including those video taping, should be held accountable for their actions. Also, those who bully/defame should be held accountable. What that is, I am not sure. I think a apology that is tagged on each defaiming post would be enough.[/quote]
You do realize that recording something isn’t illegal right?
You do realize that when someone documents someone doing something illegal, that now they could be held accountable?[/quote]
It is illegal to video cops in some jurisdiction, there are other limits on video and audio depending on place.
Not sure on your second point.