OK, here's my serial answer:
At 01:26 21/05/2004, Charles Ess wrote:
>Um, all due respect, but that wasn't quite the point - i.e., to draw an
>analogy between behaviors/choices advocated on the list and robbery, etc.
>It was rather to simply provide hopefully obvious examples of why going from
>what is to what ought to be (without further ado) is ethically problematic.
I know that that was not the point. But nobody here was advocating the kind
of standpoint your example refutes, namely "that 'what _is_ the case' does
not automatically define what _ought_ to be the case." That's why I found
your example misleading. And that's why I think, that an argument that
starts out with "by the same token", is misleading as well.
Some issue have become confused, I think. Let's dissect the argument made
by me (and I believe others here, too):
1. Through Google and other means the www/Usenet is publicly accessible.
That is an empirical observation, *not* an ethical statement.
2. Communication that is publicly accessible is public (and can under some
circumstances become part of the public sphere).
That is a definitional statement. This ad-hoc definition appears to be
pretty straightforward, but, if someone more suitable or more sophisticated
definition, I am all ears.
3.a. Therefore, it is entirely legal for any citizen or journalist to quote
(within copyright boundaries) anything that has been published on the
www/Usenet.
3.b. Therefore, it is *infeasible* to have a private communication on the
Usenet and most parts of the www.
These are also merely empirically falsifiable statements.
4. Any academic researcher should have the same rights as "ordinary"
citizens or at least as journalists (whose impact on the public sphere is
far greater), when conducting his or her research.
This *is* an *ethical* statement. I can see of no reason, why we should
curtail the rights of academics more than the rights of journalists. In
fact, many people would argue for special "academic freedom" rights that
extend over the ordinary freedom rights for every citizen. I am asking here
merely to be granted the *same* freedom rights as every other citizen
should have.
Now, you *could* argue to take Google and other web crawlers offline,
forbid hypertext linking, in fact, forbid the htt-protocol altogether to
insure "privacy" on the net. That is not an ethical standpoint I would
share, but it would target the appropriate bodies.
>All that was claimed, I think,
>is that _if_ rights to privacy can be established for good reason(s) - then
>those rights need to be respected, all other things being equal (including
>exceptions for various forms of deceptive research, etc.).
And what would be a "good reason" to establish "privacy rights" on the
Usenet? It is a protocol entirely *unsuitable* for privacy. In a few select
cases I have already mentioned several times (young minors, mentally ill
people, etc.) I can see, why we should not compound a "breach" of privacy
that has been brought about by the posters/bloggers themselves. By and
large, however, Usenet discussions are conducted by people and in topic
areas that do not warrant special protection.
> > I myself cannot see, how the Internet "erodes" privacy, at least not in the
> > ways it was discussed here (Google searches, "concealed" ethnography).
> > Nobody is forced to publish anything on the net. What could, e.g., be a
> > privacy concern is the analysis of IP logs to check on surfing behavior,
> > but that was not a point in the discussion here.
>Um, I think this overlooks a central point - and another one.
>1. A central point is what people's expectations are - whether justified or
>not. It seems clear that people frequently expect privacy, both in (a)
>contexts in which such expectations are, from an informed perspective,
>unrealistic and (b) contexts which even if originally comparatively private,
>become in various ways more public (e.g., USENET postings that were later
>published, etc.)
I may not be long enough on the Usenet, but when I first entered it (in
1996), all Usenet postings were actually published the second you sent
them, granted that some newsservers had a delay of up to a day or so. There
also was deja-news, which functioned pretty much like Google does today.
So, there was no privacy back then and looking at the technique, I doubt it
ever was differently.
Next, why should an expectation for privacy entitle you to privacy? If I am
doing 120mph on an Arizona freeway, should I be exempt from the speeding
ticket, as my "expectation" for speed limits was formed on the Autobahn and
I did not bother to inform myself about the Arizona highway code?
If you are doing something in public, it has public repercussions. If one
puts forth a racist argument on the Usenet, some racists, who come across
that posting, might get encouraged. Why should this encouragement be fair
game, while its analysis (not even its criticism!) should not be?
It works the other way, too: If someone publishes his or her
anti-homophobic views on the Usenet, why would you want to relegate these
views into the "private sphere", not treating him or her as a full -- may I
say "autonomous" -- actor in the public sphere?
>More precisely: the technologies affiliated with the Internet and
>computer-mediated communication provide affordances which render privacy
>more and more fragile.
In what sense? If I make public statements on the Internet or anywhere
else, how does it "erode" my privacy? Would my privacy become "eroded"
through a TV interview? No, it would not, it would offer me the opportunity
to share my views with a larger public. Ubiquitous CCTV erodes your
privacy, "anti-terrorist laws" erode your privacy, but your *choice* to
make some your thoughts *public* on the Internet does not erode your
privacy, it creates opportunities for your public persona.
In fact, CMC frequently enhances your privacy: Why are there so many porn
sites on the web? Because it is *more* private to order such material over
the web than to walk into your local smut store. If you take the
appropriate precautions, you can even publish fairly anonymously on the
Internet, create multiple fictional personae. What more privacy do you want?
>2. The "nobody is forced" argument is only partially correct.
>Nobody is forced to buy an automobile in the United States. But unless one
>lives in one of the few metropolitan areas such as Manhattan, etc. - there
>is no real choice but to buy an automobile if one wants to participate in
>social networks, etc.
>By the same token, as the Internet interpenetrates our lives in the
>so-called developed world more and more - as well as in developing countries
>- there is increasingly little "choice" as to whether or not one makes use
>of the technology.
You may be prompted to publish something professional on the Internet, but
that was the case before, too, it just happened differently (in hardcopy
journals, etc.). With respect to publishing anything privately on the web,
that pressure might exist in some very small circles (Internet researchers
below the age of 25), but you are certainly not "forced" to publish
anything private that you do not *choose* to publish. Even, if we were to
become "forced" to publish something privately, I cannot see, why that
necessarily would be a bad thing, after all we all do things both in
private and in public anyways. But I just don't see that happen in the
foreseeable future.
[to be continued]
