| Perhaps we could consider what is going on here to be something of a small-townification of cities. I grew up in a small town. If something was going on out from behind closed doors, everyone knew about it. And sometimes they knew even if it was behind closed doors. Prior to the current era of data ubiquity, to escape such a thing, you could find some level of anonymity in a crowd. Walking through Times Square in NYC, you're technically in public, but you're just another unremarkable person on an unremarkable day. There is a certain level of ignorance about the greater world in a small town. I've witnessed people saying and doing very--how should I say--unprogressive things, "just" because they didn't know any better [0]. On the flip side, there is a certain level of indifference about the greater world in a city. I've seen no greater degree of true open-mindedness in cities, and I think that's due to a kind of shutting down and retreating from the full ocean of people that cities contain. In other words, whether or not a certain person lives a public-by-default or private-by-default life, they're probably going to be exactly the same. So what does this mean for privacy? Privacy is a continuum that is inversely correlated with how much contact you want to have with the outside world. 100% privacy requires 100% retreat from the world, which is childishly unrealistic. Either accept that society needs to know your face to be able to talk to you, or go move out into the desert and live a hermit's life. You can't expect to live in a community and be "anonymous", not now, not ever before. I don't agree that one should be allowed to blur themselves out of other people's photos. If you're out in public, you agree to be seen. It's childish to say, "I don't want my photo online." You might as well say, "I don't want people on the bus to see my face." They are the same exact people online as they are on the bus. [0] They should have known better, ignorance is no excuse here, but it's very easy to rationalize to yourself that the media provides an accurate depiction of people-unlike-you of whom you have no personal experience. I'm not sure my grandfather has ever met an African American man who confirms his racist stereotyping of them, but that doesn't stop him from adopting whole-cloth the image that they are all wanna-be rap stars, which I blame mostly on my grandfather being a raging asshole, but a small part on mainstream media providing black men with few other roles. |
True. Seen and enshrined in some (or more) peoples fleeting memory. Not captured for (nearly) all eternity and the whole world (who were not present at that exact moment and place) to see.
That is also the reason I oppose ubiquitous public surveillance. Even if it can only be seen by some amount of government actors.
I am glad, that I grew up in a time without constant photography or trackability. I am glad, that I an not totally recorded with every step I take in public and that only the people who walk by might have the chance to remember my face and me being there at that moment.
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