The recent development of the Jessi Slaughter event, and meme, made me remember about a somewhat constant debate existing in internet articles since 2006 at least.
I, also recently, stumbled upon a couple of French articles from Le Monde, a well-known French newspaper, entitled "The young fools talk to the old farts (short version)", dating from the 11th of January 2010.
Yeah, it's a French article, but quoting different English ones:
- Danah Boyd's Erosion of Youth privacy from 2006
- 2008's Text Generation Gap from the NY Times
- Kids, Internet and the end of privacy from NY Mag.
I also saw a link to one of Kenyatta Cheese's interview in which he talks about Jessi Slaughter and the fact she may have become resistant to slanders and bullying words.
In brief, the Le Monde's article is debating on the fact that our parents have become superprotective to us and very afraid/careful toward what Internet is.
On the contrary, the fact that many young people prefer exposing themselves on the web (Facebook, among other websites) tends to show, to the writer, some signs of likeness with what our grandparents exprimented during the Sexual Revolution
According to him, it's more likely that, actually, the young generation is blunt/bored by the concept of "privacy" and, because of it, they have a hard time seeing why the growing "total control and watchful system" phenomenon of the net can become treacherous.
In a way, the young generation has a completely different conception of what is privacy.
To them, to expose themselves is a way to communicate with others, even if practically everyone can have access to one's information.
As the writer says :
Mais le fait de s’exposer est d’abord et avant tout, comme dans la rue ou la cour de récréation, un moyen d’entrer en contact avec les autres, ou de maintenir et prolonger ce contact, de trouver un(e) petit(e) ami(e), d’être félicité pour la qualité des photographies, voire d’être repéré par un futur employeur… pourquoi dès lors faudrait-il s’en priver et ne se focaliser que sur le (faible) risque associé ? Jusqu’à preuve du contraire, on court plus de risque en sortant de chez soi, à pied ou en voiture, qu’en allant sur Facebook ou Flickr !
But the fact they expose themselves is first and above all, like in the street or in a recreation ground, a way to be in touch with others, to find a girl/boyfriend, to be congratulated for their photos' quality, or even to be seen by an employer… So why deprive ourselves of it and only think about the (small) amount of risk that goes with it ? Until it's proven wrong, we are more likely to run a risk when leaving our home, by foot or by car, than by going to Facebook or Flickr!
There are many others things about it discussed in the article, like questioning the net's pressing restriction to children because of perverts, pedophiles and so on, which can become counterproductive to them in order to become adults, or also the fact that it's useless to stop youngsters to frolic on the net.
Anyway, going with it, I also saw some threads about ED, 4chan and Anonymous and, here is why it's related to Jessi and many others, their actions of "detroying" people's privacy.
Their actions can be seen as hypocrite in a way that they are praising invisibility and anonymousity to themselves, but don't hesitate to use a kind of "totalitarian democracy" by judging and destroying some people's privacy for the sake of it, and because it doesn't correspond to their idea of the internet.
While the lulz is one of the purposes achieved, we can't deny how threatful it can become, in a society that seeks to restrict more and more the net (illegal downloading mainly). Do we have to be concerned and worried that Anonymous can become some kind of informing system (I won't say terrorism because it could be too harsh for what it is) in which everyone's life can be broken to pieces ?
Many young users come to KYM.
Can we discuss about the reality of those articles and concerns? What is your draw of the situation ? What do your think about it ?
