Weekend Thinking: Great Expectations of Privacy
It’s something we’re warned to consider more, something companies are built around protecting, something we get up in arms about when it’s violated: privacy.
Even in an age of accessibility and oversharing, we still have expectations of privacy, assuming that the information we choose not to share will be kept private. Still, we probably have greater expectations of privacy than we actually receive. We see this in both the online and outside world.
We’ve heard a lot recently about “creepshots,” candid photos of women taken in public places without their knowledge or consent for the purpose of being posted on platforms like Twitter, Tumblr or Reddit for others to find. While this is definitely creepy, if these photos are taken in public places, and they usually are, they’re not technically illegal.
People are speaking out about it and some are pleading with social media platforms to crack down on users active in the creepshot communities.
But in cases where the law does not protect the public from such acts, who should be held responsible? Should every citizen take responsibility for protecting their own privacy, or should social media platforms be accountable for protecting the public from their users?
Twitter’s private information policy states that “posting another person’s private and confidential information is a violation of the Twitter Rules” and goes on to list a few examples of private and confidential information, including images or videos that are considered and treated as private under applicable laws and intimate photos or videos that were taken or distributed without the subject’s consent.
What would be considered “intimate” or private in general seems to be up to Twitter’s discretion. They go on to state that “although you may consider certain information to be private, not all postings of such information may be a violation of this policy. We may consider the context and nature of the information posted, local privacy laws and other case-specific facts when determining if this policy has been violated.”
It would seem that unless a post is blatantly illegal, there’s little chance Twitter would do much about it, so unless we’re all prepared to hole ourselves up in only private places or wear those anti-paparazzi scarves, we have to deal with the possibility of having creepy photos of ourselves in the Twitterverse.
Of course, there are ways to protect your digital identity that are a bit easier than protecting yourself from real world creeps. Simple efforts like being wary of public wifi and signing out of accounts not in use can make you feel a bit more at ease online, if not on our city streets.