Living Digital 013: Online Behavior
Jazmin Butler
This week's episode reviews some best practices for online behavior.
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Transcript
Freedom of self expression is one of things that makes America great. We are taught from young the virtues of freedom of speech. But we also learned that actions have consequences. In an age long ago before we blogged about everyday experiences, consequences weren't nearly as severe... (or expensive) as they are today. For example, we had binded paper contraptions called journals. I kept one through out my entire childhood. But back then, your worst fear might be that a few unwanted eyes might come across it. But even then there couldn't be more than a handful of people that really care what happened that time Amanda Taylor scratched your Spice Girls CD, AND journal pages were disposable, so it was essentially a 1000 times easier to "cover your tracks" so to speak. Today?...not so much. everything you do or say online is visible in one way or another. I'm sure many people already know this, but that still doesn't stop people from say, freely disclosing unfair pay in Hollywood, or bragging on facebook about crimes they committed...which I still can't believe people do.
Of course there's the conversation about web privacy and surveillance but I'm going to address this from a relatively politics free angle. Today I am going to review some online best practices.
Starting with Work emails.
Whether you're emailing within a company or from a personal account keep in mind that whatever you say can be visible to others
Email travels through many servers and it only takes one without adequate security to put you out of a job. You may be better off cutting out the digital middle man all together by using 4 little words. "Call me to discuss". Great advice that I originally heard on KCRW's Martini Shot podcast.
Take a topic that can veer into rowdy/blunt territory and take it off line. Instead of, in their words "telling the truth to each other in unvarnished language in a way that is searchable forever and easy to break in to."
Then there's social. Snapchat's October 2015 privacy policy update has once again called attention to information gathering. Particularly location and photo collection.
Some people said "well, I'm deleting snapchat". and while that curbs one form of information collection, keep in mind the camera on that same phone can be hacked into. And don't forget your laptop. Whether it's a trojan horse email or some other method, there's more one way for hackers to get what they're looking for.
Long story short, don't fall into a false sense of security or the illusion of privacy. Take a longer look at those social media privacy policies, know what's possible, and protect yourself.
If you don't want it read in a courtroom, don't type it. If you don't want you boss to read it. Don't tweet it. It's all up for grabs folks.
And I say this based on how things are and the trend of where they're going as opposed to where we'd prefer it to be. But until we reach a point where our personal musings are contained.. like pen and paper. I say use caution.