No12. ICT and social ethics of privacy

It's not hard to find the descriptions of the treaths to one's privacy in the Internet. Every once in a while the media show the examples of identity stealing, cyber-bulling and e-stalking. But on the other side ICT and neglecting pricacy allows the social control on a informal level to an extent unknown before. The days of wasting time in front of the good old telly are almost gone, now one can waste time on Facebook, MySpace or any other social network. But in order to play that game you have to fallow rules such as: show yourself, comment, engage. And allow other's to react and they WILL do react with no mercy when you break the rules of society.

And I do not mean the gossip way, i mean that our current village as it happened in prabobly every village people know a lot about their neighbours and they use the knowledge to be sure that every thing is "as it should be"

So, you are 9 years old girl and want to have a nice photo for your profile on Nasza-Klasa (Polish Facebook-like network) or a photoblog? That's great, take a nice one with a pet or your dad. Privacy threat's? Let your parent's decide. But be prepared that if you break the rules that are regarded as important in Poland not only the press is going to be all over you but also your peer-e-comrades. Not to leave it without a proof. Imagine a 9 y.o. girl who goes into an oven (THAT OVEN) in a concentration camp gets a photo, posts it and gets a comment "sweet photo" from a friend. Shocking? 3...2...1...

It happened.

The forums where full of anger, sarcasm and judgemental comments. And in my opinion in that case the lack of privacy of an indyvidual allowed the society to react towards deviation.

The matters regarding taking care of the children, being a "bad" or a good parent are very developed in every developed society. That's why the people react to such a behaviour as commented on the demotivator:



Mother of the year

Maybe there would be no comment, no social reaction if the privacy settings were set high.

The norms of the society one lives in may be not accepted by other societies (i love my cliches). That is why a person who is non-normative, like this young guy bellow must be prepared for heavy criticism:



Such like this (not so heavy):






Also you can find comments on various forums, like this one for PC geeks




Luntek touches matters of gender roles and the acceptance of the society towards crossing the normative behaviour. However, if you want to see the strongest social reaction watch this movie and read the comments (in Polish once again).




Strong isn't it? I am not saying that social control is always good nor needed in an obejctiv way. However from the point of view of the society as a whole and not single units the lack of privacy allows to control, comment and moderate the unwanted behaviours.

Still, I think that social control via ICT should be analized in a more metholodical way. Maybe we, once again living in a village (this time global), will become a "tribe" which members use the social control in order to survive and keep balance? Not by gestures, not by banishing but by commenting and banning?