Privacy Is Dead. Or Is It? Or Should It Be?
The right to privacy is, in one sense, the right to control what information gets dispensed about you.
The right to privacy also involves the right to be left alone -- to not have the government tell you how you're allowed to have sex, for example -- but I'm more interested in privacy in terms of information leakage, as I'm writing on this subject now.
It's so easy to violate people's privacy (if even by posting pictures they appear in on Facebook without their permission) now that there's an assumption that it's just the way things are; deal with it.
What are your experiences in recent years with privacy and violations of your privacy or that of others?
(Feel free to post any other thoughts or feelings related to privacy.)
A few years ago I participated on a discussion forum. One particularly dishonest forum member decided to exploit my failure to block "friends of friends" from part of my Facebook content. He posted a few of my photos on the discussion forum. These were not inappropriate in any way. It was the fact that that they were my property, I did not give him permission to do it, and I never intended them to be there.
It's shocking to see something of mine where it should not be and realize that a total stranger put it there. Still, I have resisted the temptation to unplug myself completely.
Aaron Dyer at February 27, 2013 12:13 PM
From here:
http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/BloodhoundBlog/?p=14868
Privacy is an artifact of inefficiency.
It’s a simple enough idea: What you’ve thought of all your life as privacy has simply been a function of inefficient data processing tools. The more efficacious the means of acquiring and storing data become, the less privacy — unintentional ignorance by others of observable facts — you will have.
If you find this idea repellent — dang…
It is what it is, and it’s absurd to rebel against it. We are real, physical entities. Our purposive actions sometimes have secondary physical consequences that are potentially observable to other people — and to data acquisition devices. Your best hope of achieving privacy, going forward, is to expire. Short of that, you might try to exist in some sort of extra-physical way. And short of that, you might try doing everything you do where no one — and nothing — else can observe you. And short of all that, swallow hard and prepare to have every fact of your life known, at least potentially, by anyone or everyone else.
[....]
The facts of your life that you cause to come to be knowable by your own actions are, thereafter, potentially knowable to anyone. To insist that something cannot be so when it plainly and obviously cannot not be so is simply verbalized insanity…
Greg Swann at February 27, 2013 12:18 PM
what Greg is pointing out is the articulation of Aaron's problem...
SINCE there is no way to actually BE private, you should have no expectation of it, SO GET REAL.
The question is, are you a barbarian that looks in people's windows?
The last little pipsqueek I caught on my porch looking in my windows was a bit taken aback to find that I am 6' tall and shaped like a bear. And that I showed up without him hearing me.
"Can I help you?" Rumbling in my best Darth Vader voice.
the 'no, sir.' was a squeak in passing before his feet moved him out as fast as they could go. BUT. He was on foot, in an area that it's hard to get anywhere on foot, so all my neighbors were on alert for a week.
Now. What keeps the average person from looking in everyone else's windows? Is it the expectation, that it's bad manners to do so and so you shouldn't? That it's not right to treat people in a way that you , yourself, don't wish to be treated?
This is like society or something, right? Some vestige of civilization, or politeness?
It is an illusion, just like an illusion of safety, where the mutually agreed upon behaviors of society only exist while people hold them. If they don't, you have Mogadishu rather than Madison.
To say that there is no worth to keeping these, is to assume that they have no place. I think on reflection, that this is incorrect.
The big problem is, once you give the privacy up, you can't get it back.
A different way of looking at it:
Do you have the assumption that someone might steal everything out of your car, if you don't lock the door?
Is that the fault of you for having a car there? Or is that the fault of The Criminal for stealing what is not theirs?
In yon olden days, you were likely to end up on the wrong end of a gun if you stole someone's horse. When the carriages went horseless, we put locks on them and put you in jail instead, if you managed to steal one.
But the fact was, that you as a criminal were acting against society.
Why is that different, just bacause, we are talking bits and bytes?
SwissArmyD at February 27, 2013 12:58 PM
Privacy is an artifact of inefficiency.
Absolutely true -- and well-put, Greg Swann.
But because you’re capable of something -- because you can turn another person, or their letters, or the photo you took through their window into “content” (with no compelling public interest behind your revelation) -- doesn’t mean it’s right.
Amy Alkon at February 27, 2013 1:33 PM
A colleague of mine was just put on the latest 50 Sexiest Scientists list without being notified in advance or asked for permission. Many of us put our photos on our web pages so that we can be recognized by our colleagues but this is not the sort of recognition that is likely to help a young, female scientist in her career. I can't see much of a rights violation here but I'm glad it wasn't me!
Astra at February 27, 2013 1:39 PM
A hamlet or village is an example of how privacy doesn't exist and it has nothing to do with "modern technology." The premise is that everyone knows everyone else. It's not so much whether people know about you as whether they act ethically on what they know about you.
Privacy is not whether you can be unknown. I don't think there has been that expectation for millennia. I submit that privacy is allowing what is known to be unspoken.
Suppose I live in a downstairs apartment and I regularly heard the bed springs squeaking upstairs and cries of "Oh, baby!" It is not a short list of tenants who know who is involved and (more or less) what they're doing. Now suppose I see them in the company of other tenants, I leer at them and say, "Nudge, nudge, say no more!" That would be rude, and perhaps funny. Maybe not to them.
But by restraining myself I grant them their privacy. It's not whether I know what goes on but whether I withhold public comment. It's a simple matter of ethics and the Golden Rule.
Aaron Dyer at February 27, 2013 1:55 PM
> But because you’re capable of something -- [...] -- doesn’t mean it’s right.
I agree completely, but that's a different discussion.
Do I have the "right" to control information I have made freely, publicly available? Can zero equal one? No.
Can attempting to control things that I cannot possibly control have adverse consequences? I ask this of the reigning queen of the (TSA-secured) realm of unintended consequences.
Meanwhile, can accepting the reality of our (ontologically-inescapable) physical observability have salutary results? Emphatically yes. This is the subject of the essay I linked to.
You cannot be both socially-observable AND unobserved, and it will benefit all of us to embrace that unavoidable fact -- now, before a new gesTSApo is imposed upon us.
Greg Swann at February 27, 2013 2:05 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2013/02/27/privacy_is_dead.html#comment-3626596">comment from Greg SwannYou cannot be both socially-observable AND unobserved, and it will benefit all of us to embrace that unavoidable fact -- now, before a new gesTSApo is imposed upon us.
Being observed is one thing. Having your photo taken, for example, at a private dinner party, and having it posted on the Internet without your permission is another.
Somebody can also steal the pie you've left to cool in your window because, say, they have shoes with springs in them that reach to the second floor. (Technological efficiency, you could call it.) That doesn't make it right.
Amy Alkon at February 27, 2013 2:42 PM
so, yeah Greg, at's a lotta words... interesting... but:
"Now stop to think about how much of the state we just got rid of — cops, courts, jails."
and why is it you believe that the state would allow itself to be written out of the picture?
Isn't it far MORE likely that the state will use all that horsepower you unleash for it's own coercive purposes?
gesTSApo I believe you called it.
If yo were to not think the right thing, or be outspoken about the wrong thing, what might those in power do with the ubiquity of their access to you?
Say, track you every movement? Write a quick algorithm to make you late to work? They know what way you are taking after all, and PRECISELY when you leave your house.
Why wouldn't a person who works at the company that tracks all this, start a theft ring that targets people after they leave?
Think they might could splice in the coverage so that it doesn't show when they break into your house?
The flip side of the coin of physical inevitability, is when we as individuals DEMAND that certain things are not acceptable, and write laws to make sure that certain info gathering is not generally acceptable.
Because otherwise we will be quivering paranoid wrecks, or mindless automatons that don't bother having an interesting life because someone is watching it to make sure we don't TP the neighbors.
It think I missed the point in all that large blog.
We will no doubt learn to our sorrow, that doing something BECAUSE it can be done, is not the same as doing it because it is a good thing.
Our technological cutting edginess, is cool, but the jury is out on if it's good.
My favorite bookstore back home is long gone, eaten by Amazon. I personally benefit greatly by Amazon's existence, monetarily. Yet my life is impoverished because my interest in things beyond what I myself dream of, are never recommended to me, by an old lady who's been around the world with painters and fools.
How do I reconcile that? Still haven't figure it out... and maybe my kids will just never need to.
The amazingly large datasets that are becoming our lives CERTAINLY, have benefits.
But let's not pretend that their existence isn't fraught with downside. Some of that downside is incomprehensible to us.
Like how the bookstore going out of business, means we have no job.
In my mind, it's not a privacy issue, it's a tech issue.
We know that humans cannot visualize beyond a certain number of things... how much worse does that get, when it is systems they can't even see?
SwissArmyD at February 27, 2013 2:57 PM
My hubs and I have received numerous calls offering us medical supplies for conditions that we do have. Because we have an agreement that we never discuss our ailments, even with family members, we maintain strict privacy in medical matters. When questioned, the callers invariably claim that we filled out a request for information on a website...NO, we didn't. When faced with that denial and request for a supervisor, they disconnect.
I can't help but suspect that HIPPA laws are not alive and well and someone is selling our protected health information. No way to prove it, though, which enrages me.
amuse at February 27, 2013 4:10 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2013/02/27/privacy_is_dead.html#comment-3626735">comment from SwissArmyDApparently, this wasn't clear enough (though I don't mind the digressions, because they're interesting), but I'm talking about social privacy, personal privacy - facts revealed or photos posted by friends and acquaintances or others who come upon the information; not the government.
Amy Alkon at February 27, 2013 5:23 PM
So, anyone else curios as to how the list of 50 sexy scientists only had 49 people?
lujlp at February 27, 2013 6:16 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2013/02/27/privacy_is_dead.html#comment-3626827">comment from lujlpSo, anyone else curios as to how the list of 50 sexy scientists only had 49 people?
They left off my friend Dr. Catherine Salmon.
http://www.ciudaddelasideas.com/perfil-ponente/catherine-salmon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2009/05/30/really_we_were.html
Amy Alkon at February 27, 2013 7:17 PM
the reason I went down the rabbit hole, Amy, is that data like this doesn't die...
So you are worried about someone posting that drunk indiscretion in FB... while FB captures everything about you, and social websites aggregate the info...
and in 10 years the aggregation picture is so complete that you get a ticket in the mail for running a red light, because you were being tracked by your car, and it uploaded that to facebook, where the police used that update to prove that you were there, and ran the light. They cross check with the halo camera in the intersection, and you were drinking coffee at the time [cross checked with the starbucks on your route] so you violated the law about eating and driving.
Oh yeah, and we noticed that you tend to buy the same foods as other people in your area, which must mean you are conservative, so we would like to invite you to vote for a different candidate, because the conservative ones are bad...
on and on and on.
This is possible if you are constantly capturing the info and storing it, cross referencing it and so forth.
In essence, building SkyNet.
All to easy, when people bought into it for free in the first place.
When software is free, then the user is the product, and who is buying?
SwissArmyD at February 27, 2013 7:49 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2013/02/27/privacy_is_dead.html#comment-3626861">comment from SwissArmyDI'm writing about this now, SwissArmyD.
Amy Alkon at February 27, 2013 7:57 PM
The only way to escape identity theft entirely is to not be identified.
Radwaste at February 28, 2013 2:39 AM
"So, anyone else curios as to how the list of 50 sexy scientists only had 49 people?"
They were so busy admiring Danica McKellar they forgot to add her.
Tyler DeWitt? Is somebody blind?
Radwaste at February 28, 2013 2:51 AM
Some of this is, to put it bluntly, rather creepy. I found myself being inundated with ads for hearing aids, and it took me a while to make the connection. I bought a bunch of batteries because they were cheap and fit this little LED flashlight and a couple of other things. My hearing is fine.
The Post Office can use the business, and I can toss the junk mail, but...
Facebook? Not in this lifetime. No, I will not take your survey.
MarkD at February 28, 2013 5:39 AM
"Apparently, this wasn't clear enough (though I don't mind the digressions, because they're interesting), but I'm talking about social privacy, personal privacy - facts revealed or photos posted by friends and acquaintances or others who come upon the information; not the government."
There's a relation between those two things, though. In any age, there's always been people who look to the government for moral leadership; I suspect that's a lot more true today since the social moral-leadership institutions (e.g., the church) have lost most of their influence. If the government says you should have no expectation of privacy once you step out our front door, and that you can be stopped and groped by the TSA anywhere, then why shouldn't I search the net for nip slip photos of my neighbor? I'm just doing what the government has said, through its actions, that it's OK to do.
Cousin Dave at February 28, 2013 7:08 AM
Are you referring to the people with different "silos" of information who don't believe others should be able to connect them? Someone with FB, a blog, twitter, a wordpress account, etc. who gets offended when someone in one silo refers to something posted on another because it's private, (i.e. not shared in this place)?
Recently two co-workers hooked up and they didn't want anyone to know for a while. That plan was foiled by one of their friends tagging a birthday party photo of them in FB. They were not impressed with the cat being let out of the bag. Was it an invasion of their privacy to post that picture? The picture was not taken by either of them nor was it posted on either of their pages, just shared by the owner and tagged. But the end result was the same, days or weeks before they were ready to update their FB statuses their employer and everyone else in the company knew.
K.T. Keene at February 28, 2013 8:00 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2013/02/27/privacy_is_dead.html#comment-3627460">comment from K.T. KeeneBlog posts are obviously for public consumption. Facebook posts may not be. I don't credit people from Facebook for news links they've led me to without their permission, nor do I quote them without permission.
I also firmly believe you need to ask people before posting their photos -- for exactly the sort of reason you detail above, K.T. Keene.
Amy Alkon at February 28, 2013 8:09 AM
Privacy is dead. With cameras everywhere, you can't guarantee that your business will stay private even if you never go online. I have countless strangers in the backgrounds of my photos. I'm sure they'd be surprised to find themselves on my Facebook page.
MonicaP at February 28, 2013 9:06 AM
I made a pretty off-color joke about the pope to a small group at a party recently, and my friend must have thought it was witty. Because she posted it to her Facebook wall and @'d me to give me credit -- meaning it showed up on my FB wall, too.
Luckily, I've got filters in place so that coworkers and nearly all my family members can't see things other people post to my wall. But I have a diverse group of friends from all over the social/political/religious spectrum, some of which would have found my words super offensive. I made the joke to three people who I KNEW would find the joke funny and not offensive, but, suddenly, there it was on my wall for all to see. I didn't catch it for at least an hour, at which point I manually removed it from my wall.
sofar at February 28, 2013 9:11 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2013/02/27/privacy_is_dead.html#comment-3627526">comment from sofarThanks so much for posting that, sofar. That's precisely the kind of stuff I'm warning against in my book.
I follow a bunch of researchers on Facebook. They sometimes post stuff that wouldn't necessarily be good for them to be very publicly linked to. I always ask whether I can quote them -- as I did recently when I posted something Geoffrey Miller posted on Facebook...even though it was his thoughts on something related to science, not politics or anything else.
Amy Alkon at February 28, 2013 9:15 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2013/02/27/privacy_is_dead.html#comment-3627527">comment from MonicaPWith cameras everywhere, you can't guarantee that your business will stay private even if you never go online.
No, you can't, but you shouldn't take a picture of friends at a party and think you can post it online without asking them.
Amy Alkon at February 28, 2013 9:17 AM
No, you can't, but you shouldn't take a picture of friends at a party and think you can post it online without asking them.
Agreed. It's polite to ask them first. But that sort of thing is harder to control every day, and it's a recipe for indigestion to try.
As for asking permission to quote what other people post on public forums, like Facebook: It's a nice thing to do, but Facebook has to be considered the equivalent of a booth at a busy restaurant. You have the illusion of privacy with certain settings, but anyone can hear what you say and share it with anyone else. I don't post anything on FB I don't want shared with the world.
MonicaP at February 28, 2013 9:36 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2013/02/27/privacy_is_dead.html#comment-3627554">comment from MonicaPYes, one should guard their own privacy on Facebook, but the notion that it isn't that private doesn't give you a right to use people's names and likenesses without their permission.
Amy Alkon at February 28, 2013 9:45 AM
> Having your photo taken, for example, at a private dinner party, and having it posted on the Internet without your permission is another.
And the victim of this outrage lost how many millions of dollars in consequence?
If there is an actual tortious injury, tell it to the judge.
If not, by making a scene over nothing, you invite the TSA-ization of another piece of your private life.
Doesn't seem like a good bargain to me...
Greg Swann at February 28, 2013 9:52 AM
Glad you liked my story, Amy. And I think what you do with quoting people is super courteous. You never know what filters people have set up, and I'm sure they appreciate you asking if you can share stuff with your followers.
I ended up talking to the friend who posted that joke I made and basically said, "You know, I have a ton of religious people in my friends circle, and I don't want them to hate me for my stupid jokes!" She apologized immediately, and we had an interesting discussion. Her FB friend circle is only about 50 people, and all of them are people who generally share her political views --and people she sees on a regular basis. Her goal is to have FB be a safe place she can say whatever's on her mind without causing offense. My FB friend circle,however, is much larger and more of a grab-bag, and I'm a lot less careful about trimming it down. So she didn't think twice about crediting me for that quote so it would show up on my profile. She assumed I cull my FB friend circle as much as she does. The idea that I'd even have FB friends who would find religious jokes offensive in the first place was totally foreign to her.
sofar at February 28, 2013 10:18 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2013/02/27/privacy_is_dead.html#comment-3627655">comment from sofarFacebook "privacy" settings are complicated, and not everyone may realize what they are. The long version on FB privacy is, according to a NYT piece from a few years ago, 45,000 words. I don't read any of these small print docs -- there or on iTunes, etc. I figure I should assume I'm pretty much fucked for whatever they could take from me, and hope anything truly egregious will come out in the press and get changed.
Amy Alkon at February 28, 2013 11:06 AM
If you're tagged in a picture on facebook, you can simply request the person untag you or untag yourself. Unfortunately, if they own the photo, they dont HAVE to delete it, even if you ask. Anyone who would decline or make a fuss about it though clearly isn't someone with your best interests at heart and should be immediatly blocked or de-friended. Or, you could go to the extreme and just ask everyone you know not to do this. My husband does this all the time. He's a teacher and he takes his reputation very seriously. His students, out of curiousity, often google their teachers. If they come across something that a parent or another teacher finds offensive, it could cost him his job. The same thing when we go out; We avoid places that are controversial, in case we run into other parents there. It may seem unfair but that's the way it is so we take every precaution to make sure that we minimize what gets out there. I, also, have requested that friends untag me in posts or pictures that might be connected to my husband and percieved in a negative light or photos that could effect my own professional reputation, negatively. I have yet to have a single friend get upset with me over this. Mosty, they apologize and do as requested and usually ask me before tagging me in anything ever again. I am, though, actually "friends" with people who I have some sort of real-life connection with so it's not just a bunch of strangers.
However, I wish I didn't constantly have to remind people that once it's out there, it's out there...Even after it's been deleted or untagged. Anyone determined enough, can find it. So, I have the highest level of privacy filters on my facebook possible, I don't have a twitter account and I am the MASTER at avoiding the camera. This minimizes the possiblity of any of my personal stuff getting on the internet. However, I also don't do anything that I'd be ashamed of in public so if something did make it's way out there, it's not usualy the worst thing in the world. And, in public, there is no expectation of privacy anyway so if your showing your ass in public, shame on you. Now, if someone were in my home, or at a friends home, it's different.
Sabrina at February 28, 2013 11:09 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2013/02/27/privacy_is_dead.html#comment-3627665">comment from SabrinaSure, you can request untagging or untag yourself -- when you notice, if you notice.
I advise being proactive (if you don't want to be tagged, etc.) and tell people you know your personal policy.
And guess what: You may have the highest level of Facebook privacy filters possible, but that may not be enough. Also, their privacy filters are complicated and ever-changing.
Amy Alkon at February 28, 2013 11:13 AM
And guess what: You may have the highest level of Facebook privacy filters possible, but that may not be enough. Also, their privacy filters are complicated and ever-changing.
Tell me about it. I comb my page pretty regularly though so it's not very often I don't notice if I've been tagged on something.
But, that's also another reason I am only friends with people who I have a real-life connection with. Most of them know my and hubby's feelings on personal privacy already. Those that don't know our policy usually don't have a problem honoring our requests not just regarding tagging but the taking of our pictures, giving our any of our info, etc... Again, Hubby and I don't do anything in public or at a friends house that we'd feel ashamed of anyway, but still, one can't be too careful these days. It's rare that we ever have to do damage control regarding facebook, or anything, really.
On another note: I HATE when people use facebook as their ONLY means of communication. They think by posting some important life event on their statuses, that is enough. What's worse is if I don't comment on their status then I am accused of not caring about them. I mean, I use it to promote shows, post fun things, or basic networking, not for serious communication. That's what my email and phone is for. Jeeeezzzz... Yeah. Those people usually get blocked pretty quick.
Sabrina at February 28, 2013 12:17 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2013/02/27/privacy_is_dead.html#comment-3627776">comment from SabrinaGood time for everyone to check and see whether their phone number is listed on Facebook. Mine's private. I only know because 1. I made it private. 2. I just checked again to make sure they hadn't made it unprivate with some sweeping "privacy" change.
Amy Alkon at February 28, 2013 1:13 PM
It's probably best that some folks aren't getting any Facebook privacy.
http://www.kptv.com/story/20665218/facebook-post-i-hope-someone-shoots-up-school
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at February 28, 2013 3:35 PM
Having grown up in the era of CompuServe, AOL ("When I get enough AOL disks, I'll build my own SUN), and the myriad ISP's and other "value-added" ISPs.
I've seen the rise of Yahoo, Google, Linked-in, MySpace and many others. I've also the seen the demise of some of them, or can see the fall coming down the road.
I've seen about all of them having data breaches of some type.
That is why I was not sucked into any of the Facebook or Twitter bullshit.
If you want to contact me, I have a self-run website, with multiple e-mails. I have an additional two e-mails with google and yahoo. I have a cell phone, a land line and a physical address.
If you can't figure a way out to contact me, you are clueless.
Jim P. at February 28, 2013 8:03 PM
"Blog posts are obviously for public consumption. Facebook posts may not be. "
I'm sure Amy knows this, but... Always assume that anything you put on Facebook, Twitter, et al, will become publicly viewable. Because we all know that those entities change their privacy policies and implementations nearly every day, and if there's even the slightest window that opens, some bot or spider will find it. There's also the possibility of their systems getting hacked -- it's happened before. And that's without considering people who re-post your stuff to their feeds.
Cousin Dave at March 1, 2013 7:08 AM
I set up a new Facebook page, having started from a browser with cleared history and set to Private, and then was amazed to find that Facebook apparently knew people I had contacted via e-mail over the last 20 years - and suggested them as friends!
I blame myself for not noticing how Google collects contact lists.
Radwaste at March 1, 2013 7:11 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2013/02/27/privacy_is_dead.html#comment-3628559">comment from Cousin DaveI'm sure Amy knows this, but... Always assume that anything you put on Facebook, Twitter, et al, will become publicly viewable.
Yes. I advise this. I don't post anything personal there. I just post links to posts here.
I'm always a little shocked by the extent of the personal information and rants that people post on Facebook -- people who have friended me whom I don't know, have never met, will never meet.
One guy posted about his ex-wife using the C-word. Hello? It's 5:15 am, I don't know you, I don't know your wife, and already I know this much about the tenor of your relationship? T. M. I!
Amy Alkon at March 1, 2013 7:20 AM
To me, one of the biggest issues with the modern lack of privacy is that people abuse it by "leaking" misinformation - often on purpose.
For example, I could post on FB:
"Just got off the phone w/Amy Alkon. So excited that she's decided to become a man!"
this is not true, just to be clear)
Of course, it's worse when somebody impersonates the person they are misinforming about. Either way, it can be abusive.
So, actual privacy is hindered insomuch as any asshole with a picture of you in your horrid sophomore year perm can post it, but also in that the extent of the forum can allow people to hijack the system & kill the privacy right of somebody to actually make their OWN impression (or not). Much worse than gossip.
Shannon M. Howell at March 1, 2013 11:30 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2013/02/27/privacy_is_dead.html#comment-3628879">comment from Shannon M. HowellI could post on FB: "Just got off the phone w/Amy Alkon. So excited that she's decided to become a man!" this is not true, just to be clear)
Actually, as i write in I See Rude People, this is a way another way people abuse people -- by posting defamatory statements about them.
I can't even look at my Wikipedia page.
Amy Alkon at March 1, 2013 12:22 PM
Amy, I'd forgotten that was in "I See Rude People." But, as indicated, I agree it is abusive when that stuff is done. I was just trying to indicate that the way it's set up caters to that sort of abuse.
Shannon M. Howell at March 3, 2013 7:33 PM
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