The myth of privacy

During the Superbowl on Sunday, a commercial aired for a car that recites real-time Facebook status updates for you. I thought the commercial was cute and the product absurd. I was also struck by the broader implications of this feature, the definite blow this presents to our notion of privacy online.

Let me paint you a picture
You're having a bad day. A terrible day, really. The copier is broken, which means the repairman is stationed behind your cubicle all morning grumbling noisily into his walkie-talkie. Additionally, your boss promised to have reviewed your presentation last week, and now you're waiting on him before you can make progress. But he still hasn't gotten back to you, and at the moment he's off at a client meeting with one of your other coworkers, who happens to be a good friend.

Finally, you cave. You give up on the morning and post a Facebook status: "Well, this morning is a waste. Can't get anything done while waiting on other people. Might as well play Farmville." There's nothing offensive in this post, and it's really not a big deal. Your profile is locked down anyway. Someone would have to be pretty malicious to spread this to your boss, and you have no reason to worry because your Facebook friends actually like you. You trust them with your information.

But what you don't know is that while you're feeding your flock in a fit of frustration, your coworker (Tina) and boss (Jim) are getting into Tina's fancy new Chevy on the way home from said client meeting. During the meeting, the real-time Facebook status feature in Tina's car was the subject of a brief and interesting conversation. Curious, Jim asked for a demonstration on the way home. Tina gladly obliged. She switches it on, and the first thing that pops up is your status: "Well, this morning is a waste. Can't get anything done while waiting on other people. Might as well play Farmville."

Ouch. Can you imagine what Jim's now thinking of you as an employee? Probably not good things.

You thought you were safe. You thought you could trust all of your friends, and your privacy settings were perfect, so by all reason, this shouldn't have happened to you.

You bought into the privacy myth.

Maybe you're thinking, "What an outside chance. You had to come up with a pretty elaborate story to get a scenario in which my information would be jeopardized."

You're wrong. It's not an outside chance, and I didn't have to be elaborate. I just like details. Here's another one. You post, "Really glad to get out of that dinner!" Meanwhile, at dinner, Guest shows Host a game on her phone, and your status scrolls by the screen. Whoops.

My point is, this is easy to do and common already.

The myth
The internet sometimes lulls us into a false sense of security. We have "privacy" settings and can "hide" information, but those labels are misnomers. There's no privacy. There's no hiding. There's only temporary or conditional hiding.

Until now, the only thing keeping our information within its restricted view is trust in the individuals we choose to share it with. We know that Sally can be trusted with our angst-filled Facebook wall, so we let her see it with no qualms. We know Greg isn't going to turn our private GChat into a company memo, so we go ahead and make a few suggestive jokes.

While we can still trust people, we really can't trust the technology that's delivering our messages to them. Slip-ups, accidental breaches of trust, are increasingly easy. We have to continually remind ourselves that what we say on the internet is subject to a much larger audience than we ever intended: the entire internet.

So what do we do?
My answer is really simple: If you're about to post anything with the hope that someone won't see it, don't. It's the same thing our parents have been telling us for years – if you have to look around before saying something in public, you probably shouldn't say it at all.

If you have any doubts about the content, let it sit for a while - an hour, two hours, or a day. Then, if you still feel like it's important enough to say, and you're prepared for the risk of your unintended audiences seeing it, go right on ahead.

Most of us don't have that much to hide. But if you do have things to hide, I suggest you find other outlets than social media to talk about them.