Archive for June 6th, 2007

Posted on June 6, 2007 - by jono

The Opinion Slab: Living Life Online

Ready for another slab of opinion? Need your weekly dose of opinionated ramblings? Don’t we all! This week another interesting question to bend those neurons of yours and raise that blood pressure a little…

We are all increasingly living our life online. With our weblogs telling our daily stories, Flickr showing our holiday snaps, last.fm showing our appalling taste in music and twitter showing that we are sat on the bog, it seems the grandiose plan is that any random on the Internet can know what we are doing all the time. With many of us in the free software community sensitive to privacy, and actively engaged in debates over ID cards, governmental use of information, personal information use by third-parties and more, should we be concerned? Are we increasingly moving into an age where it is normal to live your life online and share your personal details and life with others? Could the governments of the world suggest that mandatory measures to provide information to others are acceptable due to a culture of blogging, flickring and twittering?

My take: our personal information is our own. We choose how much information we unleash on the Internet. Some people share much more than others. It is wrong for a government to translate an open and inclusive culture with regards to information sharing and force it on others. Openness is an individual trait with hugely different lines drawn in the sand, and as such we cannot judge an entire culture by the small demographic of fully open individuals. The vast majority of the world are not living their lives online.

As ever, leave your opinions in the comments on this article. I am sure we will get some interesting opinion on this subject.