Today I woke up reading a troubling news about an University of Washington student was held in Italy on the suspicion of her involvement in the murder of her apartment mate. Later, Monica Guzman of Seattle PI kickstarted a discussion on facebook about how the media is using the information from the suspect’s social networking profile, to portray her as an irresponsible college student. Monica raised a very important question about whether media’s use of such information is a correct approach. I responded to Monica through facebook but I thought I will add my thoughts here in this blog (as this is related to the topics of interest in this blog).
With the advent of social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace, etc., the notions about stuff like privacy, relationship, etc. have changed. In this facebook era, people share even the tiny little details about their life. People don’t give an awkward look at those people who share all sorts of information about them. It is considered to be a normal thing in this facebook world. The old world notions about privacy is totally dismantled and we are in a world where even very personal information like the birth of a baby is shared in an almost live format. When people are becoming more and more open about their personal life, they will end up sharing photos and videos of their drunken dementia too. First, there were reports about how companies are snooping into your online information to make recruiting decisions. Then, we came across reports like how parents are digging into their child’s online footprints to know more about their actions. Even in a conservative country like India where parents are highly involved in their kid’s arranged marriage, there were reports about how they use Google to dig out information about prospective bride or groom. Today, we are seeing how media is scraping out from the online social networking profiles to conduct a media trial in front of the public.
Not only the idea of privacy, even the idea of friendship has changed in this era of social networks. You can be friends with people you have never met and you may never even meet in the rest of your life. Calling such online acquaintances as friends is considered a norm in today’s world. When we agree to change the notion of privacy and friendship in this facebook world, it is just not fair to use the old world ideas of morality on the information available in the new facebook era. It is unfair. It is time for the old world ideas of morality to evolve, to match the new world notions of privacy and friendship. In my opinion, I am even against companies digging into information like naked photograph from the beach, while making recruiting decisions. Under such a scenario, using the facebook posts and youtube videos to conduct a media trial is ridiculous. If Amanda Knox was involved in the murder, she should be punished for her act. But scraping up her drunken video and using it to conduct a public trial through media is shameful. This act should be severely condemned and discouraged. What do you think about this call for a change in our ideas about morality?
Update: Here is Monica’s take on the issue.
