It was like any other night, a disagreeable stomach, a case of the voms and a session nerding out to NPR's podcast of Science Friday with Ira Flatow. Alright Ira, lay it on me - are we heading down the path of the metphase karyotype of microchromosomes into heterochromatin (oh, i think i just vomited again), or are we entering bush league territory, where a set of ears and a pulse gets you admission? Fortunate for me and my temperamental GI system, the science gods had coated me in their pink bath of pepto bismol compassion. Tonight's topic: maintaining your privacy in the world of social networks. Flatow please, I dream in tweets; I eat digital facebook gifts for breakfast; Mark Zuckerberg and I share the last four letters in our names. Consider it cake.So here I am, not even a minute into the podcast when Ira starts talking about how the US Library of Congress plans to archive every single tweet. Come again?
Look, I know that I made some privacy tradeoffs when I entered the realm of Facebook and Twitter. Heck, I'm sure there are some NSA brass trolling my accounts right now, questioning whether my post on the superiority of Middle Eastern and Indian food is a legitimate culinary critique or a reason to ship me to Gitmo.
But what the Library of Congress is doing is far more intrusive, almost creepy. They're grabbing my information - without permission - and parading it around town with impunity, giving every wingding, dumbbell and lawyer (love you, honey!) a field day. Even if I erased my account, I could not escape the Library's archived history of my snarky comments and links, like this regrettable blog post you will soon see on my twitter page.
So will this change my social media ways? Never.
If I've learned anything in India, it's that our concept of privacy is evolving towards greater openness. As we begin to understand the full ramifications of our online social presence, we'll soon realize that we are already behind the curve. Walk into any village in India, ask them how much they make, ask them how educated they are, ask them if they are able to afford to put food on the table. It doesn't matter if 30 other villagers of differing incomes or social strata are listening in, there are no secrets - none. Sit in my room for a day and wait as one of the house staffers walks in without knocking, or an Indian compadre comes to greet you only after walking around to see what's on your computer screen. Hop onto an overcrowded bus, where shoulder-shoulder standing is sometimes replaced with lapsitting, or on the street, where boys and men of all ages, walk hand in hand, or arm-around-shoulder, sometimes spanning four bodies in length. Witness the abundance of conversation happening all around you among people who met only minutes ago. Even with the remnants of a disappearing caste system, there are no self-imposed barriers here, there is no privacy.
For a civilization dating back nearly 9,000 years, maybe India is on to something. Maybe our relationship with Facebook and Twitter is just a realization of our own inevitable societal journey from the breaking of privacy blockades towards an embrace of openness; we're just 8,766 years behind.
I believe our civil liberties are our most cherished rights as Americans - I was once a card carrying member of the ACLU. And I'm not about to give up all the comforts of my American privacy lifestyle, but if the Library of Congress wants to take my cherished tweets away from me and my 36 followers, fine, they can have them. If India is any indication, the Library of Congress is the one already behind the curve.
Any other Library of Congress types out there interested in archiving my tweets can do so using my Twitter handle: @JPGberg
-Jesse
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