Internet Privacy

Have you ever Googled yourself? I’m sure you have! But, recently? If you have a common name, have you tried searching your various usernames? Usernames, even more than full names, is where it gets interesting. Whereas the full name may find your awards or Linkedin profile, a username search might find you any public post you’ve made, liked, commented on or shared.

Internet privacy is always a pressing issue and it’s surprising to realize how unaware many people are about their online presence and accessibility. Today, more than ever, it is important to be educating our youth on the subject too. We should be going further than just teaching them to block and avoid any stranger online, to also teaching them the difference between sharing with a select group of friends and making a post public. They may be under the impression that public means only their accepted friends can see their posts and unaware that it is actually open to any searcher on the web. Teaching them the differences and how to choose will help them make educated decisions about what they share and with whom. Of course, the most important thing is to teach them that certain subjects or types of pictures should be avoided altogether online, regardless of who it is shared with.

It seems normal to me that schools would have classes or sessions that reinforce the importance of online privacy, since the age of children connected to the internet keeps getting younger and younger. Although it may ultimately be the parents responsibility to monitor online activity, we should all be pushing for this type of education to be added to schools as well; this can really help keep our children safer, but also help avoid serious repercussions for them years later. There is no harm in reinforcing what they are hearing at home when it will prove so beneficial to them.

The information age has us connected to the internet from a very young age. Even for those whose parents manage to keep their children off of Facebook and the like until high-school are connected at an age where they are still a bit naive or possibly too openly opinionated while not really thinking of the repercussions. They will realize that they have quite a bit of work to do once they try and delete all of their internet content at 21 when applying to jobs (the majority of, if not all, hiring managers today will at least search applicants on Google or Facebook).

Image Source: http://blogs.trb.com/news/opinion/chanlowe/blog/

Perhaps upon reading this you’ve just searched your own username again and found very old posts that would be better off deleted. At an older age it is easier to look back but the the real worry is for the youth who haven't yet defined their own values or identity and may make very critical mistakes when going through certain adjustment periods. Those comments or posts or poetry submissions will haunt them once they are of a more stable position or mindset in their late twenties or older. Even if they are okay with the posts, cleaning them up might be necessary depending on the field of work they choose to go into or the kind of example they want to set for their children. It could be easy to lose authority over your teen when s/he stumbles upon an old video of you engaging in some college prank or YouTube stunt.

It’s hard to have to think so far ahead or to know what you’ll prefer later on, but it’s important to be aware. For example, commenting alone can be quite troublesome. Those links and threads can all be traced back and googling a username can bring up all the past comments. Some apps or websites today don’t actually have a particular privacy setting and others still aren’t easy to manipulate without searching extensively (ex. The app Keek documents every comment made and shows each of them, in order, in a tab on your profile page for all to see).

Writing or stories get copied and stolen without permission since you've put it on a public forum, and now the issue of plagiarism comes into play. Pictures and videos are probably the biggest issues because your face is the most recognizable thing about you, which won’t soon be confused with someone else who has the same name or username. What's worse, at some point that video may have been shared elsewhere and you no longer have any control of where that particular post goes or whether it can be deleted. Even if you've only shared with friends, they can now re-post or re-share it and the audience has grown tenfold. Whenever someone is accessing it through their laptop or phone, they can not only download it if they so wish, but now can instantly take a screenshot of the picture or part of a video and this requires virtually no effort or time on their part. Deleting a friend later does not mean s/he won’t have any of your old pictures or posts saved. The unnerving part isn’t as much the worry about a malicious act from the friend, but rather the idea that it is no longer in your full control. Particularly for people you may not know very well, if you're inclined to add them it is better to add them as a restricted party first, allowing them only to see your public posts until you get to know them better, at which point you can change the privacy setting.

As we discuss this, it’s hard not to remember one of the first reality TV shows- The Real World- and wonder where the "stars" of the early seasons are now and whether they have children who watch their episodes. That show was particularly controversial when it first aired because of the types of things filmed and documented for the world to watch. Shock and entertainment was certainly the point, but did those early “stars” realize how long that behavior may haunt them? From that point on, they no longer have any rights to the footage, which can easily still be found on the web.

Being a contestant or “star” of a reality TV show wouldn’t be an easy thing to hide from your rebellious adolescent who has searched your name and witnessed all your youthful or carefree antics. Once found, it could easily undermine your authority and you would find it difficult to forbid actions that you yourself were a part of at that age. Even if you think you may be "that parent" who'd be proud to show off their adolescent ventures to their children, you may benefit from thinking twice. The truth is, it will all look different in hindsight as we change constantly and substantially throughout our lives.

If you need proof, just think back to your posts on AOL (remember when that was all you used?) or your first few uploaded pictures to Facebook at a relatively young age and tell me you've never gone back to delete them or reread them, wondering "What on Earth was I thinking? How embarrassing!". If you haven't already, you may want to do so now….

N.W.S


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