The Future of Reputation, Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet
With the intense growth of the online social media world, news headlines on television, radio, print and online have raised concerns about one’s reputation online and how that can tarnish a reputation in the so-called “real” world. Do a simple search online and you’ll discover headlines such as “Protecting Your Online Reputation: 4 Things You Need to Know,” on Mashable.com, “How to protect your Online Reputation,” on Forbes.com and “Protecting Your Online Identity and Reputation,” by Kidshealth.org. These all share a common theme and concern rising among online users, the fear of a reputation gone bad in an instant. In the book The Future of Reputation, Gossip, Rumor and Privacy on the Internet by Daniel J. Solove, he shares how “the free flow of information on the internet can make us less free.”
Solove covers case after case, where seemingly minor situations have turned into major worldwide online scandals. In these cases, the situations have nearly destroyed most of the reputations at stake. Solove shares an example in the book of a girl in South Korea who while on the subway allowed her dog to go to the bathroom in the middle of the subway train, and she didn’t clean it up afterward. Solove goes on to share how this one situation spiraled out of control because someone watching what was happening on the train had a cell phone camera, snapped a picture and put it online, not long after people around the world began sharing their disgust with her actions or lack thereof, she soon became known as the “dog poop girl.” The book goes on to discuss how this one situation tarnished her reputation and how she became a visible figure in her community and literally around the world. This was just one case, the book tells of many.
It also discusses how the popularity of Social Networks and Blogs has dramatically transformed the landscape of who can be a “journalist” and the impacts the online world has had on younger generations like teenagers and why the web can literally trap you into a “web” if you’re not careful. The book poses the question, “Why Should We Be Able to Control Our Reputations?” Solove offers interesting insight, he writes, “despite the fact we talk about reputation as earned and the product of our behavior and character, it is something given to us by others in the community.” Solove goes on to write, “Reputation is a core component of our identity.”
The idea that reputation is core to our identity is so crucial because as Solove explains in the book, our identities and character can be questioned and hindered in an instant by what is posted online about us and about who we are and what we do. In fact, the big problem is that the information posted about us, may NOT be entirely true. As Solove discovered, that is often the case, he quotes a journalist in the book who writes, “they (the facts on the web) can be incomplete, out of context, misleading or simply wrong.” In this type of situation Solove shares that in contrast to decades earlier when rumors or gossip would spread among a village, the online world does not have the familiarity with you or your family to squash such harsh naysayers from further spreading non-truths.
Solove goes on to speak of the “Digital Scarlet Letter,” Bullying and the Vices and Virtues of Internet shaming. The interesting argument Solove makes is the idea that there is no due process in the online world. By way of the web, if you are accused of something inherently wrong or something deemed by the social norms to be wrong, then you are automatically branded with a “digital scarlet letter.” In the book, Solove explains that “internet shaming falls outside the control of the legal system,” he goes on to write in an excerpt from Nussbaum, “In shaming, the state does not simply mete out punishment through its own established institutions. It invites the public to punish the offender.”
Solove saw this as an opportunity to investigate how as a culture we can approach the idea of online shaming. Solove proposes in his chapter The Role of Law, that to look ahead to the answer we must also look to our past. Solove describes the pressures of living in a time when “yellow journalism” and “sensational journalism,” was at its peak. Solove looks back to the late 1800’s when two men of law, one an attorney and the other later became a Supreme Court Justice, had questions about how gossip and yellow journalism was being used in society at the time. Solove shares these two men observed that, “privacy invasions caused ‘mental pain and distress,’ and ‘injury to the feelings.’” These two men of law proposed in the 1890’s that privacy law could “evolve to protect privacy,” this has become a crucial argument for Solove who believes there’s a way for us to continue to share online while protecting our reputations.
Different types of approaches to protect privacy are then considered in the book. Solove describes two different approaches the Libertarian approach and the Authoritarian approach, both are examined and then also considered is whether the answer as Solove explains is somewhere in the middle of the two approaches. The author then determines this is where the answer lies; somewhere in the middle of those two approaches. Solove’s answer to the issue plaguing current generations as it pertains to reputation on the web is a law that “must function as a credible threat yet lawsuits must be a last resort,” a vague but interesting vision of the future of privacy law. How we redefine the law in terms of current day Solove explains takes time and effort to address each situation and to insure that no online threat is left out of a restructured law.
This leaves us to determine who will be the right people with the forward thinking to help craft such a policy. No doubt the Internet is still somewhat unchartered territory when it comes to the Federal Communications Commission and how it regulates the online world. In fact, it may be another commission or agency/group all together who attacks the issue with the goal to find a viable policy as quickly as possible. Solove offers incredible insight into why a restructured law is necessary and why someone must step up to act now. Indeed, our reputations online can change in an instant by means of new media so we must find a way to regulate in a new way.
