Thinking critically about technology includes looking at its detrimental aspects as well as its benefits. The benefits of blogging are somewhat obvious. Communities with similar interests can share information and opinions across time and distance with people that they don't know and will never meet. Blogs provide yet another vehicle for exploring concepts and peronalities that might otherwise be unavailable for exploration.
While I wasn't interested in participating in blogging, I thought the whole concept was interesting and certainly harmless until a few months ago. I began hearing and reading news reports of how publishing information on the Internet was affecting people. I first became aware of potential problems when a fellow TA said he looked all of his students up on My Space and Facebook before the semester even began. What right does an instructor have to delve into matters that have nothing to do with coursework? Why would anyone want to know such information about students, and why would anyone take the time to look students up when there is so much prep work that needs to be done that is connected with actually teaching the course?
Still, I wasn't very concerned. But then the news reports started coming out. Parents were looking up their college student's dorm roommates on these sites and requesting room changes if the assigned roommate didn't fit their ideal. According to one news report, some college and university admissions agents were checking these sites out. Employers and potential credit providers were looking at information published on the Web on various sites. Even lawyers were using them to discredit witnesses.
Do the majority of those mentioned above check Web sites? Possibly not. But it takes only one person in a single situation finding out the wrong information to cause you hassles, inconveniences, disappointments, and hardships. In the right circumstances, it could destroy your life.
I am even more dismayed after last week's class. I knew that law enforcement agencies could track down people carrying out nepharious activities using pseudonyms, but I didn't realize that others could also do so. I also thought that once something was deleted, it was gone. Now that I know that neither of those is true, I am even more reluctant to say anything that anyone in a power position might take issue with. It doesn't matter whether using the information is legal or not, particularly in employment situations. No one in his or her right mind would ever sue an employer if he or she ever wanted to work anywhere again.
Yes, I believe many of the technologies we hail can be used against us. We need to be on guard against intrusion into our thoughts, opinions, and personal lives.
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Just to be clear about what can potentially be monitored and recalled online, let's take a look at the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine - particularly its purposes and its limitations: Wayback Machine FAQ. Type in the URL for our class blog and you can see that posts that have been edited or deleted in the past week are not available.
I know from "reliable hearsay" that administrators at my school check a potential employees online records, i.e. myspace pages, personal homepages, etc. My feelings concerning this are: I have nothing to hide, and am ok with my online record. Now if I had awkward online transgressions, I might be scared of this intrusion into my web past. Then again, it is sort of creepy that higher ups can check you out without you knowing it. I guess the trick is to not make enemies and own up to your online comments.
What is the difference in an employer doing an online search to discover what you personally have published versus a references search? a newspaper search in your hometown? a criminal background check?
All of these are viable sources of information for an employer to look at. I would say information on the web is more akin to the published data, even more so if you were the one who made it public.
Is it creepy? I don't know. I think it depends on the type of job/position you are looking at. I mean, if I am in a school and hired someone who has personal web pages out there that laud the use of child pornography with examples, then yes, I would be remiss in not having done the search. Do all companies need to do this? No, no more than all of them need to do a criminal background check.
Think about this one though -- not only is the information we put out avaialable for these web searches, but with the use of electronic databases to archive newspaper articles, etc. all of THAT information is avaialble. I have heard of someone whose arrest for drunk driving was listed in an electronic newspaper database. It had happend 15 years earlier and the fact that it still came up in an electronic search caused him problems with his employment in an electronic security. Is that fair game in terms of available information?
America’s “Big Brother” syndrome is nothing new. All you have to do is look to the historical context of our country’s mistreatment of citizens during the Red Scare, the interment of Japanese Americans during WWII, treatment of individuals during McCarthyism, and the racial profiling that continues against many ethnic groups. Nevertheless, I believe with technology there has to be a little bit of give and take. As the user, you decide whether to use the technology, and it is your responsibility to fully understand the potential risks involved. A recent story that proves my point is the case of a teen who viewed pornography on the family home computer. Clearly, it was resolved that this child had only engaged in minimally taboo behavior. However, that did not stop the FBI from indicting him on child molestation charges. Even having heard this case, I would never totally disregard a technology because of its downsides. To do so, would mean that I would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Instead, I would be practical, sensible, and knowledgeable about the technology that I decide to use. In essence, when using any technology remember to CYA.
I agree that we're in the era of "1984" and Big Brother is watching. As far as MySpace and Facebook I hope that the publicity of employers and schools viewing the information will help users realize what they put out there may be in fun for them but that's not the case for everyone else reading it. I have warned my teenage son to be careful of what he says & he doesn't use his real name or hometown in anything, I'm glad he listened to this!
It's unsettling to know how much information of our personal information is available for identity theft or other evils. There is always a price, the flip sides of the coin for good and bad, when we want to live in an electronic world with instant access.
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