Ian M Rountree

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Online Privacy vs Mass Disinterest

June 16, 2015 by Ian Leave a Comment

Franklin Delano Roosevelt - nostri-imago (Cliff) on Flickr | Online Privacy vs Mass Disinterest

You might have heard the myth that, during FDR’s presidency, the media had a sort of gentleman’s agreement with the office of the president not to detail Roosevelt’s condition – particularly with regard to his wheelchair, and the effects of Polio he suffered. It turns out that’s mostly a myth – that even in 1932, the New York Times Magazine described then-Governor Roosevelt’s “wheel[ing] around in his chair.”

Did this get suppressed, or did we simply forget about it in favor of the more convenient narrative? Convenience in this case being the uplifting idea that the media of the day were somehow more respectful, because they didn’t pry into America’s leader’s personal life – that they knew his public image was important enough to obviate focusing on his person itself.

Fast-forward to 1975, when an attempt was made on then-President Ford’s life, and a former marine foiled the attempt. The marine, Oliver Sipple, made an agreement with the media not to focus on his sexuality… But Harvey Milk, of all people, decided it was better that the world know that gay people could be heroes too. Milk didn’t consider the outcome of his outing Sipple – that the marine would lose his entire life, effectively. Milk focused, like many people in that kind of situation, on the idea of the greater good that would be served through the story. Here, the media isn’t the bad guy, a gay rights activist is… Or is he?

Fast-forward again, to 2012, when Gawker journalist Adrian Chen publicly outed a Reddit troll and cost the man his job, and the health insurance that kept his disabled wife cared for. All because Chen felt like it was a good story. The troll, Brutsch, is not the good guy. But neither is Chen, who destroyed someone’s life for a story on a news website by violating their online privacy and tracking them down. Chen’s reasoning? From the Wired article describing both of the above stories as parallels;

In identifying Butsch and shining a spotlight on his insidious practices, Chen’s article condemns Butsch’s choice of using the mask of pseudonymity to hide behind actions that have societal consequences. Public shaming is one way in which social norms are regulated. Another is censorship, as evidenced by the Reddit community’s response to Gawker.

Privacy is a troubling concept; the idea that anything about you, things you wish to keep personal and secure, could be revealed to the wrong audience at any time keeps a lot of us up at night. And for good reason! No one wants to be strung up by the court of public opinion, for any reason, ever. Even people who choose lives of public visibility (actors, media personalities, etc) who don’t need to be outed in detail to give context for their bad acting shrink from the idea that something they’ve done, or an offhand comment they’ve made, could run afoul of The Public’s ideals.

The “Out By Proxy” Issue is Not New.

Much of the discussion around online privacy frames this outing of people – the publication and focusing on their private information – as if it were a result of new tools, recently available to the web. That’s simply not the case – as Milk/Sipple proved 40 years ago. Out-by-proxy was an issue even when I first started in online communities 20 years ago.

In the mid- to late-90s, I spent a lot of time in chat rooms. Text systems built on Perl scripts, designed to log and display serialized entries from those signed on, at a near-realtime pace. We used it for roleplay – collaborative fiction writing – and I was part of a community that had about five years’ history on this chat alone, by the time everyone grew out of it. In the 90s, 5 years was an eternity in web time.

No one played under their own real name. Handles were par for the course. Even if you got to know someone fairly well and met them “in real life” – which I did, one of them was my first real relationship, and people looked at me like I was asking to be murdered by internet weirdos… There was still the chance that everyone else you were writing with wasn’t what they said they were.

During my time on these chats, I can easily recall at least two instances of people being “found out” by a number of means, and having their real details publicized within our small circle. Names, addresses, photos, schools they attended, whether they had been married or had kids – the names of their pets.

Keep in mind, this was the late 90s – nearly twenty years ago – before Google was properly a thing, much less reverse image search. In both instances, the person who’d been found out disappeared – one without a trace, and the other simply stopped playing, but kept in touch with those people who didn’t care about the revelation through non-chat means.

This process of discovering, revealing, and using the data around an otherwise anonymous person on the web is known as doxxing – and it’s becoming rather common. In an Economist article on doxxing, comments section in particular reveal attitudes on the effects of doxxing. How this intentional destruction of online privacy works, and the complete lack of accountability related to it are the subject of deep discussion in a lot of places.

Earlier this month, TechCrunch reported that The Online Privacy Lie is Unravelling – and made a case for why that’s important… But they’re a bit late to the party, clearly. When Milk doxxed Sipple forty years ago the idea of privacy as we think of it was already under fire – and on the web, it never existed at all. Any belief otherwise is delusion. At that time, being outed as gay was damning on its face. Now, however, being outed can include much more than your sexuality – any behaviour you exhibit, anything you allow to be recorded and documented – especially if it goes into the web – becomes a condition you can be outed for.

Spent too much time drinking in your teens? It’s probably documented. Kicked a dog by accident? Might be a viral video without context before you know it. Participating in a chat, or on twitter, behind a mask of anonymity? Be ready to be doxxed, apparently, because that’s the big red button hanging over us all.

We do have some control over our own data, if we look for it.

If you’ve put that information into an electronic form, it might be less of a breach of privacy and more of an intentional disclosure. It has its upsides, however – one of the reasons I’ve written for the last six years on a domain carrying my name was a concern over identity fraud. I don’t get enough visibility to qualify a public figure, which is fine, but there’s definitely value in owning your namespace and controlling the context around it.

We rely on mass disinterest for protection, but that’s not privacy.

The reason TechCrunch’s article rings false, at least for me, is that it’s not Google or Microsoft who’s doxxing people. Most of the privacy debate is now focused on marketers, businesses, advertisers and so on. Almost none of it comes back to what more often than not puts people in danger; the laser focus of targeted and specific public attention.

When you see a video of someone committing animal cruelty, and hear about how the person was found in record time by a crack team of investigators… It’s other stakeholders, independent actors and occasionally smaller groups who create this publicity for that bad actor. It’s this process that brings context and focus onto an individual, in a way no advertising targeting or aggregate data point ever could.

TC’s right, though, in that “Start-ups should absolutely see the debunking of the myth that consumers are happy to trade privacy for free services as a fresh opportunity for disruption.” But the answer is not necessarily that transparency related to data and algorithms is a must. Education about what online privacy is, and what it isn’t, will become very important in the near future. Their last note, “Services that stand upon a future proofed foundation where operational transparency inculcates user trust — setting these businesses up for bona fide data exchanges, rather than shadowy tradeoffs” is particularly apt. However, that should have been a general commentary about the need for education, not an admonishment of businesses doing business things.

Our reliance is on being part of the crowd. There’s definitely safety for your person as part of an aggregate – without identifying data and backing context, the most you can do with a data point is throw off the averages a bit. And even then, there are very likely to be bigger outliers in some other region that make your data look uninteresting. This means that until there’s a very particular reason for people to care about who you are, that will offer them some gain, there’s no value in the effort it takes to back you out from the crowd and doxx you.

The safety of the herd. It’s effective for most, but not very attractive because we know precisely what it takes for this system to fail us individually.

We don’t have a good answer for online privacy yet, no matter what anyone says.

Even the best software – and hardware barriers can’t prevent breaches in data security. We see this all the time with stories about government actors attempting to breach national firewalls, proving that security on its own is not enough. We also saw this with last year’s iCloud hack that released hundreds of celebrities’ nude selfies and caused a massive kerfuffle. Apple’s since gone on a total “This Is Your Data” bent, and pooh-pooh’d Google, America’s NSA, and other bodies for trying to destroy privacy with their data collection techniques.

Backing all of your data out of the aggregate would destroy the value of that aggregate – as well as limiting your potential to benefit from its value. Many services are tied to data aggregates, whether we believe they’re related to online privacy or not. Social networks improve their features by way of aggregate data analysis, as do online games. However, where most people are now concerned with the amount of personally identifying information bodies such as Facebook have attached to their accounts, very few people ever worry about how a multi-player online video game could negatively affect them (in which case, see above regarding doxxing).

Think of the census – your country probably conducts one. It’s not just used for making sure everyone’s in the right place; it’s also used for economic projections, spending plans, as background information for poles, and many other statistics that help keep the country running. This real world, physical aggregate is no more or less valuable than its online counterpart – though it’s never referenced in the same bad light.

The other side of this, is that the argument “If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear” is utter and demonstrable bullshit. Everyone has issues about their person that they’d simply rather not have brought forcibly to light. It doesn’t matter if it’s a a particular kink, a lifestyle choice, what sort of small-clothes they wear, or a self-esteem issue because the right side of their nose is slightly more rounded than the left side… No one likes their very-personal weirdness exposed without consent or control.

Jeff Jarvis suggested, years ago, that no one really cares about privacy – they just hate being surprised. That, I think, is a major key to solving for privacy in the future; creating situations where, by our intentional delivery or withholding of information, we’ll understand the potential outcomes of that action.

That’s not privacy as an outside regulatory force, though; it’s self-censorship. And that’s a lot harder to sell.

Back to FDR’s wheelchair. My point here, on the whole, is that privacy is a result of context and framing. We believe that things are private not because no one has access to them, but because they’re framed in a private context – these bits and bytes of information about us are obscured, or undisclosed, and as such exist within a framework of privacy. When that’s breached, we’re right to be upset. However, just like that “unreported” wheelchair, even information within a broader public knowledge can be respected, and treated with dignity such that eventually we believe it was never public at all (even though we all know it).

The conversation about online privacy has to stay a cultural one – not the subject of a business or regulatory study.

Filed Under: Communication Tagged With: community, internet, privacy, sociology

Language Problems – From Verbs to Nouns

May 23, 2011 by Ian Leave a Comment

“England and America are two countries divided by a common language.”

George Bernard Shaw

One of the biggest confusions people can have in communication is using the same words, but meaning different things.

Breaking Through - Ryan Ziegler | FlickrI don’t mean homonyms, stereotype, or any other typifying agent. I’m not talking about the pronunciation of tomato or potato either. I’m talking about literal speech, interpretation, and where it all falls down between people.

We see this kind of improperly filtered language problem all the time with conversation. Whether we’re speaking or listening, we miss bits where they’re important.

If you ask how I’m doing, and I respond with “I’m fine.” – what do you think I mean? Do I really mean I’m doing well, or am I perhaps masking a bigger problem that I’d rather not discuss?

If I tell you things are hectic or ridiculous at work, does that mean I’m struggling with my job, or that I’m in my glory as an organizer and producer?

It’s not just interpersonal communication either – language affects how we do business. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Communication Tagged With: bloggers, Blogging, business, business communications, communication, deliverables, language, nouns, verbs, work, writing

The Assumption of Witness

May 9, 2011 by Ian Leave a Comment

Two situations. You tell me which one is more confusing.

1. You, and two colleagues are at a baseball game.

Halfway through the game, your chatter turns to work. One of your colleagues makes a comment to your other colleague that makes you intensely uncomfortable – perhaps it’s an attack on the second person, perhaps it’s a sexual slight against a fellow colleague not at the event. Either way, if it were in a workplace, it would be harrassment.

But you’re at a baseball game – a social event. Is it harrassment?

2. You post something on a colleague’s Facebook wall.

You intend it as a joke – but a third party, who is Friends with both of you, makes a complaint to HR, and all of the associated fun with a harrassment suit begins.

The comment was made off work hours, on your home computer – indeed, Facebook is blacklisted on the company network, and it’s impossible to make this kind of joke at work. But still, the complaint has been made.

Which one of these is the bigger problem?

This is an issue fundamental to the problem businesses have with social media; despite all sanctions, we’re still running into many of the same problems. In either of these situations, the trouble a business faces is whether or not these work-related comments are under their purview of care for their employees. Where does work end, and casual relationship begin?

We thought blacklists and policy would declaw the cat as far as social media goes, but people keep ending up with scratch marks.

This specific hypothetical came out of the #QNet2011 conference panels, where (Modern Earth client) Jeff Couture of The Proactive Circle spoke up during a question about harrassment and cyber wellness; his scenarios (the ones above) touch on this conundrum quite well.

Here’s the crux of it; there’s an assumption that people witness what we do in person, but do not witness what we do online.

In a group of three people, any comment is going to be heard by all three. Even if we suffer from filter failure once in a while, we can safely assume that anything said in that group should be the speaker’s real opinion. Thus, harrassment is obvious, and the only question is whether or not comments off the workplace clock and site will affect workplace performance.

Adding social media into the picture creates a new problem; socially, we’re not developed well yet to handle asynchronicity. It’s not a problem of people being any bolder, or relying on pseudo-anonymity. It’s the idea that we’re used to witnesses only being present at the time of the offence – whether we perceive an offence or not. But online, everything is on record. Even when we write blogs in our boxers, we’re on record. If we detail our bathroom habits, it’s on record.

If we praise or ridicule a coworker online, it’s on record. Temporal witness becomes eternal witness.

How do we deal with this?

Sure, we can censor ourselves, but that’s a patch not a fix. Sure, we can police public profiles in some instances – but what about the future, when all employees are expected to be social advocates for their companies, and proudly bear their corporate badges even when they sleep, through their social web presence?

This is foolish, magical thinking at best.

I really wish I had an answer for you on this one; should we be treating the social web the same, given the difference in assumption of witness? Or do we just need to grow better foresight and learn to account for asynchronous discovery or our communication failures?

What do you think?

 

Filed Under: Communication Tagged With: anonymity, community, courage, futureproof, harrassment, human resources, human talent, social media

Links That Think – Falling With Grace

April 11, 2011 by Ian 2 Comments

I’ve been doing a lot more reading than writing lately.

Given that I follow about 200 RSS feeds in my Google Reader, a convergence of ideas usually takes some strain – however, this evening I found a sequence of posts that was particularly elegant.

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to project planning, preparation, and the effects of preparation lately. As I’m revving my motor back up after vacation, I’m finding a lot of other people are being intentional about getting back into the swing of things as well.

First, Uncle Seth talks about how to fail – something we can all get better at. When I was learning Judo in my early teens, I found it fascinating that almost the entire White Belt is about falling correctly when you’re thrown. What can we learn about failing correctly, so that we land and spring back up when we’re thrown?

Then, Stan the Man at Pushing Social gave us some hints on how to fall into the “Burnout Sucker Punch” with grace – which is a great head-first guide to finding ways out of that pit of writing anhedonia.

Stan’s article reminded me of something James at Men with Pens wrote some time ago about avoiding writer’s fatigue – which still holds true. Setting yourself up early – like, before you even begin a project – is a good way to avoid, or at least delay, fatigue.

Preparation often equates with infrastructure – Amber Naslund dropped a post today about how, while infrastructure isn’t always sexy, it’s so necessary for whole preparedness. In particular, the preparedness she’s speaking of relates to moving on from social media being flash-in-the-pan to full integration. You can’t integrate without infrastructure.

And speaking of integration – Simon Salt at The Inc Slingers wrote a particularly puissant post about the integrity of your personal brand – and, in essence, how shutting down (prolonging your state of prone repose) after a fall can be helpful. Simon was speaking not just of falling down, but intentionally stepping away for down time – which is also key.

What are you learning lately about falling down and getting back up?

Filed Under: Communication, Content Strategy Tagged With: blog reaction, Blogging, content creation, links that think, serendipity, seth godin, simon salt, Stanford Smith

CAUTION – Crisis Management Specialist

January 7, 2011 by Ian Leave a Comment

Be aware:

Any tasks given that are past their due dates will be returned inordinately quickly, at a higher than expected quality.

Be warned:

Any tasks given without a sense of urgency, threat, or liability will be forgotten and summarily dismissed until their due date is perilously close.

Do you know anyone like this? I’m sure you do. We all do. Some of us are Crisis Specialists – it’s a really bad habit to have. Being constantly inn the grip of reaction is a poor way to get things done – for most of us.

Most people think of “proactivity” the way they do other personality traits, as a quality. You have it or you don’t. I (and most emotional intelligence tools) disagree with that kind of formulaic typing. I see proactivity as a sliding scale, with four points on it something like this:

  • Strategic
  • Proactive
  • Reactive
  • Reflexive

A few people are consistently strategic – they have a plan, they always have a plan, and if something doesn’t fit into it – well, there’s a new plan just waiting in the back of their minds. These are the Leaders of the world.

Some people are blessed with a sense of permanent proactivity – they like to get things done, and they like them done as soon as possible, so they can move on to more fun things. I call these the Smart Slackers.

Other people, however, are stuck being reactive rather than proactive. They phone it in until they can’t avoid the work any more, and mostly end up failing because of [enter your own reason here]. Them? They’re the Real Slackers.

Everyone else – that dread one percent – they’re Crisis Management Specialists. There’s nothing inherently wrong with being a Crisis Management Specialist, you see them get work done all the time. Firefighters, Police – we assume these jobs are in the CMS category, and sometimes they are. In their case, it’s not a bad thing.

But in your business, it probably is. Marketers, SEO, bloggers – being purely reactive, living without a plan, waiting for the next opportunity to play hero by demonstrating extraordinary timeliness… these are not Superhero traits for these jobs.

It’s better if you realize that falling behind is nothing more than falling behind, and find a way to get ahead instead. Otherwise, you’ll always be managing crises, and are far less likely to manage success.

Filed Under: Communication Tagged With: 2011 themes, recovery, theme 1

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