"P is for Public, Not Private" and Other Things Zuckerberg Teaches his Daughter... Probably.
The title was too much, wasn’t it?
Girl, you’re going to need to tighten up those privacy settings, tbh.
Despite Mark Zuckerberg’s seemingly cavalier assertion that privacy is dead, the state of affairs in the digital world, the academic community, and Zuckerberg’s 350 million Facebook users might beg to differ.
I mean, it could be just me, Zucks, but I think the fact that many are now using the term “The Big Privacy Debate” suggests that — to the rest of us at least — privacy really shouldn’t be dead. In Europe, on May 25, 2018, the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) will become enforceable, albeit a half-hurrah for Europeans as some call it the least understood data protection law ever created. No less, the need for these sorts of regulations is not only important in today’s digital-driven world but necessary.
Yes, we get it — this is not a new concept. In fact, in Speaking into Thin Air, John Durham Peters talks about the late-evolving idea of privacy in communications. As Peters discusses, long before Facebook existed, letters were mailed openly and the post office was the sort of personal information hub reminiscent of what is now your Facebook News Feed. However, since then we have made a decidedly strong stance on the right to privacy: it’s now illegal to open mail that isn’t addressed to you (See: the Canada Post Corporation Act). But what’s our stance on digital communications? Facebook renewed their terms and conditions and conducted a privacy change for 350 million people in pursuit of growing their business at the end of the day. Does this still work for us? Or is it, as Zuckerberg says, “a changing social norm”?
Ironically, the same CEO who tells us that privacy is no longer a social norm is also spending millions on his own privacy... So, Zuckerberg, I’m not sure there’s really a question of privacy is dead or not, but instead, does the digital economy prevail over the fundamental rights of human beings around the world?
