Hello reader,
I was on a random Reddit thread yesterday when someone said
he used to look at geotagged images and try and find the people in the photos,
calling them by their names because it is so easy to find out things about them
just from a tagged image. It was an interesting discussion that makes me
wonder, how much do we value privacy?
It is so easy to forget that the internet is not a really
safe place that we share anything and everything freely. I was once like that.
I shared every photo I liked on Facebook and Twitter until one day I received a
reawakening. I had Googled myself and the images that came up were personal
pictures and lots of photos of my nephews. I love my nephews very much and I
think they are the cutest so I felt the unnecessary need to share their photos
with my Facebook friends and my Twitter followers, not understanding that I’m
actually sharing them with the entire world. I wasn’t comfortable with their
pictures out there like that because they are so young. I therefore embarked on
a ‘clean up’ mission, deleting Twitpics and removing photos off my Facebook.
Not only that but I readjusted my privacy settings.
I had always liked privacy but now I value it greatly. I am
now careful of what I post asking myself questions like, “is there anything
that looks unfavourably upon me and my loved ones?” “Did this person/s approve
of me posting this photo?” “Will this hurt someone?” “I’m I revealing unnecessary personal information
about myself or others?” and so on. Nowadays I only talk about my nephews and
it’s always something positive. I don’t post pictures of them anymore and not
many people know their names, or where they go to school. That’s how I like to
keep it. I admit though, sometimes I’m tempted to post a photo. My cousin sent
my mum a photo of his newborn daughter and she was so, so adorable that I
wanted to Tweet it. I didn’t though because she’s still so young and I didn’t
think my cousin would approve. I didn’t even post photos of my nephew’s
athletic meet because other than respecting my own privacy, I respect and value
theirs as well. I am so careful of what I post online that even here on this
little blog of mine, I make sure that I don’t reveal too much about myself or
my loved ones. I think its importance to maintain a balance.
I do feel sorry for celebrities when thinking of how privacy
is important to me. Even though renouncing most of your privacy comes with the
status, I cannot imagine how unsettling it must be to have millions of people
know details about your personal life from who you are dating, which restaurant
you visited to your pets names. In high school a lot of people knew my name and
who I was. I wasn’t popular *scoffs*; it just came with being the only one
wearing hearing aids. I remember one day when I was in the school bathroom –I must
have been in Grade 11 or Grade 12- and this lovely girl in Grade 8 said, “Isabella?”
I looked at her and she smiled and said, “I know who you are.” That was so
unsettling because I did not know her name. Not fair, haha! Felt like something
out of a thriller.
I think we all need to carefully scrutinize what we put
online and if it involves other people, ask them for permission, especially
when tagging! I am not a fan of tagging people in photos on Facebook and if I
do, it’s because they’ve asked me, or gave their okay for me to post photos of
them and tag them. Did you know that even if you’re not friends with a specific
somebody on Facebook, they are able to find information about you just by
having a mutual friend tag you in something? Let that sink in a moment.
Feel free to comment and let me know how much you value your own personal privacy, if you have ever
experienced an invasion of privacy or what steps you take to ensure your
privacy online. I’d love to hear your stories!
‘Til next
time,
-Bella
