cyberspace norm police can be extremely dangerous—with an unprecedented new power and an underdeveloped system of norms to constrain their own behavior

This article is part of a virtual reading group for Daniel Solove’s book The Future of Reputation (schedule here).

‘Hard words break no bones’ is a phrase that has been in use since the Renaissance, but things may be changing. The internet is a realm composed mostly of language, and the process of identity creation that youth go through is thrown into sharp relief when it’s stripped down to words. When teens invest themselves online, they are putting a great deal of value into terms: names, labels, and the power of specialized language to build a sense of community. In a world of interaction and reputation built entirely on words, the old adage is being revised. Online, ‘sticks and stones will never hurt you, but words may break your heart,’ and on the internet, reputation and the damage done to carefully constructed online identities can have devastating ‘in real life’ (IRL) consequences for youth who are already unstable and in need of help.

International Dog Crap

Sometime in 2005, a tiny dog—one of the toy breeds very popular in Asia—crapped on a subway train in Korea. It’s owner, a young college student, refused to clean up the mess. A fellow passenger took a picture with a digital camera and ridiculed her online, unleashing a tidal wave of online activity that made her the center of a moral witch-hunt and an international discussion about privacy. The consequences for the Korean woman far outweighed her poopy faux pas. The stress ended in her dropping out of college and becoming suicidal. The introduction of Daniel Solove’s book, titled “When Poop Goes Primetime,” uses the case of ‘the dog shit girl’ to introduce us to the issues surrounding privacy and freedom of information on the internet. Even if you’re not going to read any of the rest of the book, this first chapter is worth your time.

More below the jump…

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The Future of Reputation by Daniel Solove

Description [from Amazon]:

Teeming with chatrooms, online discussion groups, and blogs, the Internet offers previously unimagined opportunities for personal expression and communication. But there’s a dark side to the story. A trail of information fragments about us is forever preserved on the Internet, instantly available in a Google search. A permanent chronicle of our private lives—often of dubious reliability and sometimes totally false—will follow us wherever we go, accessible to friends, strangers, dates, employers, neighbors, relatives, and anyone else who cares to look. This engrossing book, brimming with amazing examples of gossip, slander, and rumor on the Internet, explores the profound implications of the online collision between free speech and privacy.

Daniel Solove, an authority on information privacy law, offers a fascinating account of how the Internet is transforming gossip, the way we shame others, and our ability to protect our own reputations. Focusing on blogs, Internet communities, cybermobs, and other current trends, he shows that, ironically, the unconstrained flow of information on the Internet may impede opportunities for self-development and freedom. Long-standing notions of privacy need review, the author contends: unless we establish a balance between privacy and free speech, we may discover that the freedom of the Internet makes us less free.

Reading schedule / links to responses below the jump…
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From ‘A Softer World’

There is an argument made against privacy that says someone who isn’t engaged in criminal behavior has nothing to hide. This method of thinking allowed the US government to slowly sap away our civil liberties in the wake of the 9/11 attacks–many have just accepted that trading privacy for security is acceptable and used the “nothing to hide” argument to rationalize what was, essentially, a decision based on fear. However, limiting the government’s ability to intrude in our private lives is easy compared with attempting to control how personal information spreads on the internet via gossip. Rather than spies or wiretaps, gossip is often gathered by those we trust and spread online by people who don’t understand or appreciate the potential for the damage it can do. In reality, privacy is about much more than concealing wrongdoing.

Internet-based abuse (‘cyberbullying’) and privacy / relationship issues are still massively misunderstood. The complexities of online sociality are probably the biggest ‘generational divide’ between modern teens and adults. To help put it in perspective a bit, here are some numbers…

I HAVE A MYSPACE ACCOUNT!!1!