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Book Group Members:

Lisa Barbee Sarah Cardwell Donna Hensley Anne Patrick Molly Roberson

Questions for Discussion || I honestly don't think that there will be any problem for the current generation regarding their job prospects and their postings on MySpace and Facebook. These digital natives post everything about their lives, leaving little to the imagination. We tend to be horrified at the level of TMI (too much information) that these internet users are sharing, but their colleagues and bosses are typically of the same generation. Many companies require their employees to use social networking. They accept the fact that there will be postings about parties and more. Much more. I asked my son about this question because his job does expect him to have a strong presence on Twitter and Facebook. He has no fear whatsoever about what he posts. He says that his boss posts about his life. They overlook the crazy stuff. If your work performance is optimal, that's all that matters. I asked about applying for jobs and how an online persona might have a negative effect on that and he laugh heartily! He said that employers probably do look at the social networking of their potential employees, but they accept that "everyone" (exclude us from this!!) has skeletons in their online closet and they don't think twice about hiring based on negative things in your online past. Employers care about performance, potential and drive.
 * // The following questions are designed for use by academic classes and for book reading groups. // **
 * What will life be like for the generation coming of age now, with their high school and college gossip preserved in MySpace and Facebook profiles? ** If I were in a position to hire new teachers, I would certainly turn to the Internet and Google that individual. Many jobs(including teaching positions) have used checked criminal backgrounds for many years. Choosing to also Google that person is no different. What is different is what we might find. We might find inappropriate photos, videos, even if they have committed plagarism through new online tools. What should we do with this information? I think that it depends on the job being interviewed for, the "event", and the age of the person. While I do not think age should automatically absolve an individual from a "lapse of judgement", I think that it may explain circumstances. As the digital generation ages, this may not be a factor. If they are in positions of power, this may not concern them as it does a 41 year old's perspective.
 * What will life be like for the generation coming of age now, with their high school and college gossip preserved in MySpace and Facebook profiles? ** If I were in a position to hire new teachers, I would certainly turn to the Internet and Google that individual. Many jobs(including teaching positions) have used checked criminal backgrounds for many years. Choosing to also Google that person is no different. What is different is what we might find. We might find inappropriate photos, videos, even if they have committed plagarism through new online tools. What should we do with this information? I think that it depends on the job being interviewed for, the "event", and the age of the person. While I do not think age should automatically absolve an individual from a "lapse of judgement", I think that it may explain circumstances. As the digital generation ages, this may not be a factor. If they are in positions of power, this may not concern them as it does a 41 year old's perspective.

We have been warned in our county to be careful as teachers about what goes on our facebook account because of our teacher code of ethics. Information posted can definately harm your reputation and in some cases could cost your your job. With this information being so readily available to anyone we should be extra cautious before posting anything we wouldn't want the world to know.

Since it is occurring online, it is a permanent recored. No longer is the "event" just a memory in a small town or college dorm, it is world wide. The "Poop goes Primetime" is a good indicator. We should all be aware that we may be photographed or videotaped at any time with OR WITHOUT our knowledge and consent. Another difference is the number of people that can immediately view the occurrence and the rapid rate at which it can be accessed. With this power and speed it is now going world wide instead of just ruining your reputation in the community. Instead of being able to leave when gossip and rumors have become to much there is no where to truly turn because gossip and rumor are worldwide. For high school and college this could destroy future careers and even have them become accessories to criminal acts.
 * Gossip, rumor, and shaming are nothing new. So why does the fact that these things are occurring online make a difference? **

​Most of us have done things that later we regretted. Word of mouth is soon forgotten. After a while other gossip and rumors take its place. But the fact that it is all on line, it may never end. Those who are trying to move on may not get that chance.

Online lies and gossip are most definitely spread rapidly and often well beyond the scope of offline rumors. An offline rumor may spread throughout a school, an office, a community or an organization, but would rarely go beyond a generally localized area. An online rumor can spread globally and at an exponential rate. People who have no idea who you are suddenly believe that you are a poop ignore-er or worse. It is nearly impossible to correct a rumor spread offline and, I believe, completely impossible to eradicate one that is spread online. There are online rumors and lies that started years ago at the inception of the internet that keep cropping up. You have only to look to your email to find some of these. And they are believed to this day.


 * Perhaps the generation in high school and college today – what Solove calls "Generation Google" – will no longer expect privacy. Will people just get used to having their private lives exposed online? And if this happens, is there a problem or are we just seeing a transformation in the way people live their lives? **

I believe that those who want attention will use the internet to get it. For those of us who are more private, we need to be careful where we go and what we do. You better know the company you keep. They may have other motives. I think that's the scariest part. The house or the apartment you are visiting may have cameras. Think of all those unsuspecting visitors who visited Jennifer Rigley!!

I think we have already started to see this where people are putting that information out there fully knowing that others are viewing. I think we are also seeing that many people are exhibitionists and liked to be viewed and known publicly such as Jennifer Rigley the student who left her web cam on for over 5 years for the public to watch her every move. I do believe that digital natives are used to exposing their private lives online. They scoff at those of us who worry and fret about what we post about ourselves. I think that this ease of exposition of private lives does come at a price. Privacy has come to be less valued rather than more valued. I don't agree with this, but I'm afraid I have to live with it. I still crave privacy on the web and I create an allusion of privacy by living part of my online life in personas that are unconnected to my real self.

This question occurred to me as I read the book. I am afraid that the net generation will grow up with little privacy values. The JennyCam that the book spoke of was just something so foreign to me as I value privacy on and off of the web.

**Is there anything that the law can do to protect against what happened to the Dog Poop Girl (described in Chapter 1 of the book)?**

No. Just as even if there weren't the internet someone could have posted pictures and posted them all over her town. People are going to talk especially when it involves behavior that they disagree with. No. We have too much government control in other areas already. I think laws should be passed concerning false accusations and stolen identities through the internet. But the one thing I have learned through this book (and recent events) BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU SAY AND DO IN PUBLIC.

I absolutely agree with my teammates. The law cannot protect us from the slander that was aimed at the Dog Poop Girl, nor would I want it to. I believe in less government control and more self-control. Of course, I am not so naive to believe that people are able to always conduct themselves in a respectful manner on or offline. We will forever have to face issues regarding protecting our reputations.

I also agree with less government control and more self control. With information at your fingertips (via the web), and smartphones, I think we will see more of this as behavior.

I don't think there is anything that can be done legally. Just being aware that this situation happened can make people more aware of their actions in public and hopefully help them to practice self-control. But whom of us hasn't lost our temper in public or done something we wouldn't wanted posted for the world to see. It is scary to know that this can happen but I agree with you all we just have to be very careful!

**In Chapter 3, Solove discusses the Washingtonienne case, where a woman working for a Senator blogged about her sex life with a guy she was dating, revealing explicit details about his sexual preferences. He sued. Should he be able to prevent the woman he was dating from writing about her life?**

This is tricky because if let's say she posted pictures without his knowledge then he would definitely have a legal case. In my personal opinion I agree that she had no right to post that information without his knowledge. However I know that is something that is difficult to regulate and we would probably have millions of court cases of people being sued for such things on the internet. No, not her life. However, she should be very careful when "describing" those she has been with. But here again, (sorry to sound like a broken record) we need to be discreet when it comes to what we do, where we go, and who we are with. Bloggers will talk about anything and everything. If you don't want them to talk about you, don't interact with a blogger. I'm being cynical. Surely, the newest pickup line will not be "Hey, what's your sign and do you blog about your sex life?" No blogger in his or her right mind would admit to writing such a blog. I think the expectation needs to be, "whatever I do with anyone might become fodder for the internet." Live your life in a righteous manner and you are relatively safe. Only relatively though because lies will be told. Oh what a tangled web we weave on the world wide web...

What a wicked world we live in in this day and time. The internet just enhances the abilities of the wickedness! Don't get me wrong I love the internet and don't know what I would do without it but I am learning more and more about how bad it can be as well.

Copyright law says that if she took the picture, she "owns" it and can post as she likes. I believe in being discreet, something that we see less of in the Internet age.

**When the law restricts people from spreading gossip and rumors online, this affects free speech. How do you balance privacy and free speech for online expression?** As I stated above, I think that each of us must assume that anything we say can be accessed by anyone, anything we do can be twisted and misconstrued and anything we read could be fabricated or truth or a mixture of both. I am a strong proponent of free speech and I think that it is the responsibility of each of us to speak our minds, but consider the rights of others when we do so. It isn't all about me. It's all about ALL of us.

Tricky statement. This battle has been going on for more than a hundred years. We are now adding the Internet as another place of expression. I think that if information is put up that harms someone and they request for you to take it down, then you should honor that request. Treat others as you want to be treated.

**Isn’t shaming people online good? If people know that they will be exposed online for acting rudely, then maybe we’ll see less rude behavior. Why isn’t that a good thing?**

I think there is always a thin line to cross. Free speech is a great right to have when the information is true. I think what crosses the line is when rumors or unproven facts and allegations about people start to appear. Then people do not have a chance to prove these false and that is a problem

If the allegations are proven false, the information spread so quickly to so many people your reputation is already ruined. It is very unlikely that those people will hear the truth and lets say they do- first impressions are usually the lasting ones. We also like to spread bad stuff instead of good stuff anyway so not many people will be trying to pass along the newly corrected information. I am really realizing we live in a messed up society/world! Free speech is one of the greatest rights we have in this country. We are allowed to speak our mind and give our opinions. In no way should free speech be redefined apart from our Constitution. But there is a responsibility we have to one another and the information we give. I think those who have been caught acting rudely have learned a lesson. We've seen evidence of this in the news lately (Michael Phelps smoking crack, White House reporter Helen Thomas making racist comments about the Jews, Tiger Woods, and so many more). Shaming goes too far in the fact that we continuously hear about it. It doesn't seem to stop. How long did we have to hear about Mark Sanford's affair with the Argentinian woman?? I got all the info I needed on that case in two or three days. But I had to hear about it for over a month (on the internet, TV, radio, and newspaper).

Shaming has not seemed to have much of an effect on people like Michael Phelps, Helen Thomas, Tiger Woods, Mark Sanford or other high profile alleged perpetrators of "rude" or worse behavior. Shaming seems to serve the shame-err more than the shame-ee.

No, it is not good. I do not read the National Enquirer nor do I seek out the shaming on the Internet. I think that people who used to only have a small voice among a limited circle of friends, are enjoying being able to be an "author" of information on the Internet, good or bad.

**Some say that the best remedy for bad information is good information. So perhaps the solution is for victims of online rumor and gossip to put up corrective information online so that it will also pull up in a Google search under their names. Would this solution work?**

Yes and No .... but who has the time ???? I think this is where we go wrong. We are so quick to spread the gossip, but not brave enough to stand up if the info is incorrect. In other words, how many times have we spread rumors (been a part of the problem), then upon finding that the info was wrong, we didn't go back and correct our own comments? We are all guilty of this. We are more willing to listen to any information that comes our way without checking the authenticity of it. We should be willing to post corrective information, but as Donna has said, "Who has the time?"

Amen - I said the same thing in an earlier question before I read this one.

Time is most definitely one part of the problem, but I think that your point about lack of courage to stand up against gossip is huge. It is easy to side with the masses when spreading a rumor, and challenging at best to stand against that tide. The crowd could easily turn on you for speaking out. Additionally, some might believe that one voice against thousands will be unheard. We need to speak truth to power fearlessly.

I had never Googled my name until a month or so ago. There is not time to do this. There is another person in my county with the same first and last name as mine. Her name used to appear regularly in the court report section of the local paper. I am sure there are many more people with the same name world-wide. Again, there is no time for this. Why should I have to constantly be on the defensive?

** Solove argues that the laws that protect privacy are very weak. What needs to be fixed? **

People should have a right as to what information is out there, while this is difficult to maintain there should be a way for people to take down information that is false. I agree. More freedom to remove information. That's the whole concept behind Wikipedia. Info can be readily edited. The web should be the same way.

This seems unmanageable. But I am at a loss of how this can be fixed. While I want to believe that editing the web is a solution, this would be completely crazy in use. Do we want every website to be editable? Even Wikipedia has editors who look over the page edits made by the general public. This is a massive job and I think impossible to maintain. I am really confused about how to create laws to protect privacy. I don't want the government stepping in to do this. Not ever.

More governmental control and consequences about what you post. However, I do not want this to happen either.

**Solove contends that the law currently has antiquated notions of privacy and that these are holding the law back. What are these notions? What alternatives does Solove propose? Are these alternatives workable?**

** In Chapter 6, Solove argues that the Communications Decency Act (CDA) § 230 should be changed to make ISPs and websites responsible for comments posted by others when they know or should have known that the comments are defamatory or invasive of ****privacy. How does one know this? Won't this encourage too much takedown since website operators or ISPs might want to avoid being sued?**

There would soon be no way to access the internet because ISP's would close down. Websites would shut down comments because they would not be willing to take a risk. And the web would become a non-interactive wasteland. This is something that cannot happen. We have seen the interactive web and we love it. We crave connection with people and, oddly, with products. We want to talk. If we were unable to talk on the web, we would not bother to log on.

I agree. ISPs would close down. This was not the the idea behind the Internet. Berners-Lee wanted it to be free for everyone. To me, the audience is just larger. I do wish that the ISPs would have a standard policy to look into complaints timely and to "temporarily" take down information that appears to slander individuals. .

**Try to rewrite the CDA § 230 by proposing specific statutory language. Can you craft a rewritten version of § 230 that strikes a better balance between reputation protection and free speech?** I do not think I can take a stab at this question because I truly do not believe that a law can be written that will effectively protect the reputation of individuals while preserving freedom of speech.

**In a review of the //The Future of Reputation,// Professor Rebecca Tushnet (Georgetown Law Center) compares Solove's proposals about the CDA** **§ 230 to the notice-and-takedown regime under the DMCA. She writes: "Given how easily notice and takedown can be abused, and how rarely posters challenge notices (which must seem very high-stakes indeed to nonlawyers), I am unenthusiastic about this idea unless the procedure was made very transparent and the penalties for ISPs were pretty limited." Does Tushnet's argument support the existing approach? What can you say in support of Solove's argument and Tushnet's objection?**

**In Chapter 7, Solove contends that the law should recognize privacy in public. How could such a protection work? Would this prevent people from taking and disseminating photos of others in public? Although there may be instances where people expect some degree of privacy in public, there are also other instances where people can't plausibly have privacy in public. How can such situations be distinguished?** || I think that it would be hard to distinguish these situations. I would like to see some privacy in public honored. The book cited a few examples where it was like the AIDS situation. Current copyright law for photos states that if you take the picture, you own it and can use as you see fit. With popular websites such as Flickr and FaceBook, pictures are readily available. Possibly some change in this law would help.

I enjoyed this book more than any that we have been asked to read for the Master's Program so far. It was very enlightening and makes me more aware of what I do in public. It is very hard to instill some of these values in my 10 year old with any information available. I cringe at the time when he receives his own cell phone. I hope he is CAREFUL about pictures, texting, and posting to the Internet. Currently, he hates Facebook! Maybe I am on the right track with him!

I agree with you Donna- many parents need to become involved and advocate for and to their children not only about safety while using the internet but warnings about how the internet can be used to harm others. We are talking about American society and social ethics here. If we do not instill in our children good morals then they could soon become the victims of online defamation, or worse yet become the defamer or shamer!

Current case in the new - Sherrod fired for her video remarks at a NAACP - [|�1�]http://issuu.com/dcourier/docs/courier_072310/1?mode=a_p page 12 - "Obama apologizes to fired Official". Her last comment in the article indicates she is considering suing for defamation of character. She spoke at a NAACP meeting, it was video taped, a blogger posted to his website. Who will win? 