Online Networking: A Philosophical Challenge?

From the surveillance entertainment of Big Brother to closed-circuit TV and celebrity magazines, the boundaries of what is regarded as appropriate to put in the public domain are shifting dramatically, but nothing is challenging our notion of privacy more than social networking, with 26 million of us using Facebook to share the minutiae of our lives every month in the UK alone.

Facebook has proved irresistible to many because we are lured into joining by friends and family. Browsing, comparing and nosing is instinctive, impulsive and reflects our tendencies offline, our “social graph,” as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg likes to call it.

The rapid pace of development by technology companies often throws up new cultural and ethical challenges. Google’s Street View has frequently been challenged by privacy campaigners who question whether the logistical and commercial benefits of making every property in every street visible on the Web are worth the sacrifice of the individual’s right to privacy.

Lord Richard Allan is a former Liberal Democrat lawmaker and Facebook’s European policy director. “The internet is here to stay as a ubiquitous way for every individual citizen to capture and share information,” Allan said. “The challenge is how you manage that increasing flow of information and that’s where Facebook is at the bleeding edge, allowing people to navigate that world. Expressions of concern and criticisms are really of that direction of travel, rather than any particular product, like Facebook.”

Allan thinks it is an exaggeration to characterize privacy as a natural state of man, citing societies before mass transport where a large community would know every intimate detail of each other’s lives.

The modern sense of privacy came much later, with modern transport and cities. “Notably with new technology, you end up with a utopian viewpoint and a dystopian viewpoint, but a lot of things those dystopians feared did not come true,” he said.

“To say you’re ‘living in Facebook rather than the real world’ is a complete misreading of what’s happening. The reason it is so compelling is because it is so connected to the real world. With every wave of technology, we need to get used to it.”

Christian Payne — who describes himself as a “social technologist” — abandoned a career as a photographer in early 2008 when he had a “car crash epiphany.” Within minutes of tweeting a video of his crashed Land Rover, he had an offer of help from a local crane operator, his AA membership number sent to him and a call from British Telecom asking for the serial number of the telegraph pole he had crashed into. He worries that spirit of helpfulness will dilute as social media becomes more commercialized, and its users more skeptical.

"This is a seminal moment where we’re seeing new thinking and new practice starting to emerge around the issue of privacy,” said Stephen Balkam, chief executive of the Family Online Safety Institute and a member of Facebook’s safety advisory board.

"The battle lines are being drawn between generations. Facebook is headed by someone who hasn’t hit 30, but has very different perceptions and assumptions about what is private and what is not. We need to recognize that with social networking, geolocation and digital technology, the privacy bar is being reset."

Part of Facebook’s success has been to demand people’s real identities. In that way, it represents the maturation of the Internet, where the previous norm had been a wisecrack pseudonym and a world of “trolling,” where faceless, nameless commenters could easily post abusive messages and attack each other.

Balkam recently suggested Facebook recruit a philosopher to help interpret some of the demanding and unprecedented ethical and sociological challenges it faces. “No company in the world has ever attracted 500 million users and they are having to come to terms, at lightning speed, with what is good and what is abhorrent behavior. Aristotle and Plato struggled with that — and the average age at Facebook is 28,” Balkam said.

Read the full article from the Guardian London by Jemima Kiss:
"Internet Social Networking is Challenging our Notion of Privacy."