The Truth Behind Privacy on the Internet- Niamh Burke
Social networking sites have become yet another stepping stone which inches closer towards an age of no privacy. There are various ways to communicate online however two prominent ways include SNS (social networking sites) and CMC (computer mediated communication). However for this blog post I will be focusing on SNS, in particular, Facebook.
The line between public and private content online is becoming continuingly unclear (Papacharissi, 2011, p75). When posting a comment, message, image or status on Facebook is it possible for this to ever be completely removed from the Internet? It seems too easy for something to simply ‘disappear’ with one click.
The Daily Mail Online published an article on “How to DISSAPEAR from the Internet: Nine-step guide helps people vanish without a trace and then surf anonymously” which describes a nine step process to completely rid yourself of any content on the Internet. The nine steps to disappear from the Internet are:
“1. Close your Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn accounts.
2. Search for yourself online and close any accounts you'd forgotten about.
3. Falsify information on accounts that can't be closed or deleted.
4. Unsubscribe from mailing lists.
5. Delete search engine results.
6. Contact websites directly and ask them to remove details about yourself.
7. Ask data clearing houses - companies that collect and sell data to other firms - to remove your records.
8. Ask to be unlisted in phone books and online directories.
9. Delete your email accounts.” (Woollaston, 2014).
By applying the steps that Woollaston mentions this may infact remove all traces of your identity from the Internet. However David Erickson from the marketing blog e-Strategy argues it is impossible for content to be removed from the Internet, this is discussed in the E-Strategy YouTube video (2013).
(Erickson, 2013)
Erickson explains that even if an individual deletes content, Google and other databases store information from when it was first published and this can be retrieved by using the cache that is associated with the deleted content, which will make it still available whether or not it was previously deleted.
After researching both sides of deleting content it is undeniable that the Internet holds no privacy because everything can be tracked down, even if the content has been ‘deleted’. The fine line between private and public content has been well and truly stepped over and shows that any information on the Internet can be accessed, an individual just needs the right tools and knowledge on how to do so. So when Facebook is being used to “form understandings of and relations to ourselves and others” (Sauter, 2014) it is important to remember this content may never be completely removed and may always be accessible in one form or another.
Reference List
E-Strategy. 2013. “Delete from Internet”. YouTube video, posted July 4. Accessed March 16, 2014. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEaphoEVvIU
Papacharissi, Zizi and Paige L. Gibson. 2011. “15 minutes of Privacy: Privacy, Sociality, and Publicity on Social Network Sites.” In Privacy Online: Perspectives on Privacy and Self-Disclosure in the Social Web, edited by Sabine Trepte and Leonard Reinecke, 75-89. Heidelberg and New York: Springer. Accessed 12th March 2014 http://link.springer.com.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/chapter/10.1007%2F978-3-642-21521-6_7
Sauter, Teresa. 2014. “KCB206 Internet, Self and Beyond: week 2 Lecture Notes”. Accessed March 16, 2014. http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_4_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fcontent%2FlistContent.jsp%3Fcourse_id%3D_108110_1%26content_id%3D_5232444_1
Woollaston, Victoria. “How to DISSAPEAR from the Internet: Nine-step guide helps people vanish without a trace and then surf anonymously” Accessed March 16, 2014. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2575745/How-DISAPPEAR-internet-9-step-guide-helps-people-vanish-without-trace-surf-anonymously.html