It’s becoming increasingly common to hear about students, job applicants and teachers being ridiculed, humiliated or fired when their life online is discovered by those who stand to judge them. The once antique notion that someone might be ‘ruined’ has returned, and in the 21st century it’s not just single women and members of the aristocracy whose lives can be torpedoed by a poorly placed remark. We are snails. The internet has brought us out of our shells, and Google has provided us with a glutenous trail which can never be fully erased. What you say online stays with you and youthful indiscretions can no longer be forgotten in an age of camera-phones and file-sharing.
In the world of porn the implications reach far. Personal ads, adult site memberships and social networking profiles can all contain potentially damning information, and may all enter the public record. For the cost of a second-world data-miner anyone can connect the public and private dots which link our physical and electronic identities in ways we often don’t desire. If you think you’re anonymous, think again.
In five years, when teenagers who have never lived a life which didn’t extend to the wires cease to exist, the issue of what’s relevant, what’s private and what should be rightly forgotten will be raised again. In the UK, at the age of 16, a minor’s criminal record is hidden from view, effectively expunged for all but those at the highest levels of power. Online we’re becoming our own jailers. The web doesn’t care how old we are and forgets nothing. We’d be better protected if we sent our blogs to the local police station.
These are halcyon days, as the net becomes a more significant part of life anonymity will become less desirable and harder to maintain. Newsgroups were once so far underground you could plan a bank-job online without fear of reprieve, now they’re stalked by the FBI and everything edgy’s a trap. The freedom to expose ourselves we now enjoy, safe in the knowledge an obscure email address can’t be connected to our social security number probably won’t last long.
We’ll live to see Presidential candidates being questioned on drunken comments they made as horny teenagers, and many of us will be forced to justify stupid things we forgot we said before we knew we’d ever want to join the mainstream.
We have to start treating our private digital actions as recorded events we may have to later defend. More importantly, if your digital life is defensible, are you prepared to defend it?
I am way past that point of return I am afraid….
I’d defend it, but sometimes fear that I’d be worse off due to my semi anonymity, whereas a totally anonymous person would be better off. People would ask me, ‘well what was your excuse?’ and I’d be ‘well up yours, mate.’
Anyway, on the funnier side… A few years ago I joined alt.com just for fun, and ended up being messaged by a dude that was really into the entire role play thing (started referring to me as ’slave’ from the word go, which I didn’t appreciate much), and when it came round to exchanging pictures I noticed that he was a well known Sydney socialite (the type who appears in all the right social page pictures), and I laughed. Then people whine and complain about their anonymity.
Inhibitor - Welcome to the club. The chairs are comfy.
Anastasia - The end of that story’s yet to be blogged. Go on…