Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, recently made the following comment : "You have one identity. The days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly ... Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity."
It's an outlook like this which I think explains Facebooks ongoing problems with privacy. If the head of the company really believes that we are simple one-dimensional social creatures (and coincidentally more easily mappable and manipulatible for advertising, then it never really will be the ultimate social networking solution. What I would love in facebook is exactly the opposite, a layered identity which I can tweak for various levels of acquaintance. Does that mean I have a 'lack of integrity'? I don't think so, because simply wanting to not publicize certain information to certain people, does not mean I have malicious intent. What Zuckerberg seemingly fails to understand is the boundary of the private sphere is not simply between me and everyone in the world I have had no contact with, rather it is specifically an intricate layering of relationships within the network of people I do know, but with varying degrees. Indeed, since I have no contact and may never meet the 'everybody else' then I actually care less about them knowing my 'private' stuff, since it will have no impact on my life. It would be as if keeping things 'private' meant keeping them secret from aliens or people in the past or distance future - it makes the term meaningless. Which of course would make things a lot easier for the likes of facebook!
Similarly, private does not mean 'secret'. The point of a 'secret' is it is restricted but useful knowledge. The recipe for coke is a 'secret' but whether I have a loose toenail is not. In both cases the possessor has information others do not, and is reluctant to share it with others, but in the latter case it is 'information' only to me, and not is irrelevant to them. And this is another element of private affairs - it is not that they are necessarily hidden from others, they are just more comfortably kept that way, since they are nobody elses business. Of course, just as I don't ultimately care if soimeone on the other side of the planet who I will never meet knows about my daily life, if it's not relevant for others, and they don't care, then the logic could be that they then won't pay attention, so it doesn't need to be private in the first place. But the reason this is not the case highlights perhaps the main reason why we want to keep things private, and this is not about our integrity, but the integrity of others.
Being honest, I am perfectly 'ok' with what I do in all my social levels. At the end of the day, I personally am not going to be embarrassed or regret what happened in any sphere; however, I wouldn't want all levels open to everyone, because I would worry about how others would view it, and how it would affect their interaction with me. Take for example political or religious views. I stand by my viewpoints, so if it came to it, would defend them in front of everyone. But, I also know not all people would agree with me, some might take offence, or (more the issue) some might disagree, and being less than perfect individuals, might act in hostile or malicious ways, or even just handle me differently. Now of course, for my closest friends this is not the case (they wouldn't be my close friends if it were), but I know am involved with much more people than this. To most it may not matter, but to some it does, and one reason why private spheres exist and are respected (in some societies anyway) is they allow us to interact and deal with others who may not agree with us, since for day to day practical matters this agreement is not necessary. Maybe if we all lived in some gigantic commune where everybody knew everything about everybody else then we'd all adapt and attitudes would change, but we don't. And a reason why we aren't likely to in any near future is that information is open to interpretation, and widespread disemination runs the risk of people getting the wrong end of the stick. To have a functioning society, made up of different individuals, requires bubbles of private space, but mechanisms for them to interact. For Zuckerbergs Utopia to exist society would either have to be very homogenous, or very small, and the web community is about as low scoring on both these counts as is imaginable.
I really think that just as social networking (and hats off to facebook for making the most of it) taps into a major force in the modern world, the game is for the taking for the company that can really tune it to how people really view it. Roll on diaspora!
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