Posts Tagged: community

Week 10: Privacy and Information Ethics

Social Network Sites: Public, Private, or What?
– Boyd
1.  Online social networks have changed the world we know today.  What are some of these changes and are they more of a positive or negative effect on society?

2.  The article mentions how educators are requiring more help from their students than ever before when learning about new technologies and the Internet.  Of the educators that see social networks and our new online world as an evil, do they actually have enough background understanding to make this type of negative assumption?

3.  Social network sites are the latest generation of ‘mediated publics’ – environments where people can gather publicly through mediating technology.  Unmediated public spaces are like malls, cafes, and parks.  This article says, “public spaces have many purposes in social life – they allow people to make sense of the social norms that regulate society, they let people learn to express themselves and learn from the reactions of others”.  Can social networks correctly be classified as public spaces (mediated or not) even though most people’s social network personalities don’t accurately represent the real person?

Facebook privacy settings: Who cares?
– Boyd and Hargittai

1.  Is it possible that because younger generations that currently don’t care about the privacy setting controversies on Facebook haven’t had as many real-life situations (professional careers, marriage relationships, long term community reputations, etc) will change their minds when the effects of Facebook postings begin effecting their lives on a grander scale as they grow older?

2.  Is the flow of information on the Internet too free?  Has it gotten to the point that we need to enforce identity and privacy issues similar to those that outline most forms of information outlets?  Why has the Internet been branded the untouchable free information source if it has negatively effected out global community in so many ways?

WikiLeaks
1. Will WikiLeaks dominate this online niche or will we see new sites popping up that provide the same (or similar) service in the future?

2. Should WikiLeaks be allowed to continue?  Although the service exposes issues in our world society, should this type of detective work be left to watchdog journalism?