Response to ‘Secrecy, Privacy, Publicy’ Post
A large surge of interest in the ideas driving yesterday’s ‘Secrecy, Privacy, Publicy’ post. Erick Shonfeld of Techcrunch jumped right in:
It used to be that we lived in private and chose to make parts of our lives public. Now that is being turned on its head. We live in public, like the movie says
(except via micro-signals not 24-7 video self-surveillance), and choose what parts of our lives to keep private. Public is the new default.
Stowe Boyd, along with others before him
The idea of publicy is no more than this: rather than concealing things, and limiting access to those explicitly invited, tools based on publicy default to things being open and with open access.
I don’t particularly care for the neologism, but the idea behind it is spot on. This change represents a major shift in the social fabric, and it is only now just getting started. If you thought there was a lot of hair-pulling over privacy in 2009, just wait until 2010. Facebook’s new privacy policies which favor more public sharing, will be a big driver of this shift, as will the continued adoption of Twitter, which by its very design makes personal utterances public. Then there are startups like Blippy that go even further by turning every single purchase into a public statement.
It takes some getting used to the idea of living in public. As I discussed several hours ago with Andrew Keen
It’s not that privacy disappears. But it becomes more a matter of emphasis and a conscious decision. Boyd points out:
Some people are the web equivalent of nudists: they live
very open lives on the web, revealing the intimate details of their
relationships, what they think of friends and co-workers, their
interactions with family and authorities. But … even these
apparently wide open web denizens may keep some things private, or
secret.
via Erick Schonfeld www.techcrunch.com
Turns out that Schonfeld and Andrew Keen were involved in a discussion about ‘the death of privacy’ when my post broke. Keen has had a long series of tweets since, including these (reverse choronology)
@jobsworth is the Calcutta model of an absence of privacy preferable to Anglo-American model of guarding individual autonomy?
end of privacy as a “major change in the social fabric” http://bit.ly/63bvlb (by @erickschonfeld). actually a major threat to social fabric.
Privacy overated? RT @jblossom: Yet “publicy” enables communities to form effectively. Privacy has its place, but it’s overrated as a virtue
can one build privacy? http://bit.ly/sUZgL if your identity is publicly displayed, then the private self may be chimerical.
21st century “public” sphere is an individualized version of mass public space RT @kevinmarks: @nitin @zephoria HTTP://bit.ly/publics
btw: i’m not against shrouding oneself under the veil of transparency. It’s the political dress of the 21st century.
is the new privacy the “plausible me”? http://bit.ly/sUZgL personally, my own goal is implausibility.
the more one uses the word “transparent”. the more opaque one is likely to be (Obama, Google etc etc)
if the “masses” is 19th century word & “celebrity” a 20th century one, what is a 21st century word? (perhaps “publicy” http://bit.ly/5w1hlb)
one thing is for sure: transparency is ideology.
Hegelcrunch RT @erickschonfeld: Instead of making the private public, we will make the public private
Well worth reading: “secrecy, privacy, publicy” by @stoweboyd (via @erickschonfeld)
@arrington I’m trying to think through the implications of your assertion that privacy is dead.
so what is 21st century word to describe people formerly known as the masses? RT @yelvington: “The masses” … such a 19th-century concept.
I suspect that
privilege in the digital 21st century will buy privacy. Celebrity is
being commodified. Wealth will buy anonymity.
have the masses always lived in public? RT @DonLinn: Um, I don’t think there’s anything new there. The masses have always lived in public.
21st century
default is living in public, privacy will be the new scarcity. The
privileged will have access to privacy; the masses won’t.
RT @gsiemens: I disagree - no one will have access to privacy. That’s been amply clear this year (pick a crisis or celebrity of your choice)
privacy: key scarcity of future RT @daveowhite: if privacy becomes scarce we will just have to use it more efficiently, Victorian style.
is Erick right? Will the idea of personal privacy wither away in 21st century? RT @erickschonfeld: yes, we all live in public
No, it’s not a typo, nor the prettiest word, but having just read Stowe Boyd’s post about “publicy” I like it. He defines it thus:
The idea of publicy is no more than
this: rather than concealing things, and limiting access to those
explicitly invited, tools based on publicy default to things being open
and with open access.Needless too say I am a fan of “publicy” and live more of my life,
more openly than most, but it is not easy. Not everything is
appropriate to make public and the expectation of being public can
become an inhibitor as I have written before.via The Obvious?
I will update this post as more responses come online.
