Social Web 3.0

There's been a lot of talk about social networks and their influence on society lately. This isn't surprising; Social networks are widely popular. It's common for youth particularly—but even possible for any age group—to have either or both a MySpace and Facebook account. Speaking personally, I have a Facebook on which both of my parents1, my pastor, etc. are friends of mine; I even just added my boss as a friend. I add this just to show that my Facebook account is on display to just about any source of authority in my life. With that out of the way, I want to address the idea of privacy on social networks and disciplinary actions that result from these types of web site.

Who would be so stupid?

I have to ask the question, “Who would be so stupid to publicly broadcast something they don't want known?”

Students post pictures of themselves holding cans of beer and bottles of liquor—even when they're underage. They pose suggestively wearing little—sometimes no—clothing. Some appear to be smoking marijuana in bongs or joints, even holding firearms. They openly write nasty comments about each other or their teachers and coaches online.2

I find it common sense that if you're doing something that someone you know could easily find objectionable, its a bad idea to make it public knowledge. I understand that we are social creatures and want to share our lives with others, but if there's something you don't want to be public knowledge, its a good idea not to share it with anyone. Illegal behavior is a great example of this. If you're under 21, you know full well that it's illegal for you to drink alcohol and that there are consequences for breaking this law. I don't feel any remorse if you are stupid enough to make this public.

Who are we kidding?

There's another side to this argument; People have been committing objectionable behavior long before they've had a social network account, and to some extent, we know this. People under the age of 21 have been illegally drinking for a long time now—most likely for as long as there has been a law against it. The difference is that there's more proof of it now. I think people need to actually evaluate these objectionable activities and be clear on the punishment.

I've held jobs that commonly make it known to the employees that they “want you to be able to share anything” with them, without consequence. It sounds like a great idea, and they really do mean it, but it doesn't work like that in practice. More often a policy like that means that whoever is in charge really wants to know what problems there may be, but won't hold true to the “no punishment” side of things. My point is that there's always going to be things going on that the authority is unhappy with, and they need to either be clear what the consequences are for it, but at the same time fully expect that consequences easily lead to secrecy. The other side is to really hold to the ideal of having no consequences and limiting their ability to respond to something the find objectionable.

Let me sum this up.

To sum up my opinions more simply, people need to realize that if something is at all public—shared with anybody—it can easily spread to anyone. At the same time, most objectionable behavior isn't that uncommon. Underage drinking happens whether you can prove it or not, and that isn't a very surprising concept to anyone. We need to evaluate what battles we're going to fight; Is punishing someone's objectionable behavior worth never having access to the rest of their behavior?