Video: danah boyd at SxSW: Privacy Is Still Alive!
Posted by Alex_Pasternack on Tuesday, Mar 16, 2010
It may not be saying much, given the humdrum quality of many of the sessions, but internet researcher danah boyd gave one of the standout talks at the South by Southwest Interactive fest over the weekend.
Wearing a warrior princess getup, she began with an unmistakable jab at Mark Zuckerburg: “No matter how many times a privileged white male tells you privacy is dead, it’s not." Online social networks might be full of privacy pitfalls, and many may be eager to click through screens of legalese to start spreading their contact details, ideas, and what beer they’re drinking at what bar right now. But if asked, people still want to have a say over who can see their information.
“Fundamentally, privacy is about having control over how information flows,” she said. “When [users] feel as though control has been taken away from them or when they lack the control they need to do the right thing, they scream privacy foul.”
In a study to be released in weeks, the Pew Center for Internet and American Life in weeks, most people said they cared greatly about online privacy but they didn’t do much about it.
“The wired world is seeing a move from private by default to ‘public by default, private by effort,” boyd said.
Read Making Sense of Privacy and Publicity or take it in above, the internet way.
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