I find it definitely apt to be reading Solove article especially with recent news of social websites like Twitter and Facebook gathering personal information from users’ tweets or posts to leak or to sell to advertisers. Then there is the recent news of Google tracking web users’ visits and search histories. I think what Solve touched on about social sites is what struck me the most. Social sites allow users to express their thoughts and opinions and share their personal details or photos of their lives, but I think users need to know that Facebook and Twitter are not public forums. They act like one as it is free to sign up to becomes members, but ultimately they are both private companies that need to make profit. That is not to say they are right to be doing what they do, but users should be more aware about they put out there on their social sites. I admit I used to feel like I should be really upset with Facebook and Twitters, but I don’t think much about what they are doing as I don’t put anything scandalous on my Facebook or Twitter. However, after I read Solve’s article my views on Facebook and Twitter have changed. He wrote:
“What many of the Facebook users objected to was the increased accessibility of their personal data--the fact that others would be alerted to every new update to their profiles immediately. Privacy can be violated nor just by revealing previously concealed secrets, but by increasing the accessibility to information already available.”
I really have to agree with this. The details we put on our social sites are ours to use how we like them. We did not type them up with the intent of Facebook and Twitter using to sell it to advertisers. On Facebook and Twitter, we have the control to pick and choose who we want to share our information with so in a way we are not allowing the whole world to know what we ate this morning or what think of our favorite shows. We put limits to how far our details travel because that’s in our control, and it’s an option that Facebook and Twitter offered to their users. Even Solve touches upon this when he wrote: “When information within a particular group and a person causes it to leap boundary, then this is a privacy violation even if the original group is large.” Yes, we are putting details out there but I think the way Solve explains it makes a good case for the outcry from users and a great counterpoint for the alternate argument.
What recommendations Solve makes for legal changes in this country are: 1) the law should eliminate the nuanced understanding of privacy, 2) the law should recognize privacy in public, 3) it should better protect confidentiality, and 4) the law should allow people to have control of their information even after it has been exposed to other public or other people. I think the first priority from this list to eliminate the nuanced understanding of privacy. Things get convoluted because there is no clear definition of what is covered in privacy law. It always seems to be like, “oh you can privacy when XYZ but only if you’re XZY. For example, you can have privacy in the public but only if you are inside a public building. Are people inside a public everyday? No, so that law only applied on certain occasions. I think once the privacy law lacks or doesn’t have
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