Oxymoron: Social Sites & Your Privacy
The Superior Court of Fresno County, California ruled against a blogger, Cynthia Moreno, whose family suffered (business loss, death threats, etc.) as a result of her blog entry on MySpace,”Ode to Coalinga,” where she criticized the city of Coalinga and its residents.
Her blog post had been harvested off the Internet and reprinted in the local paper. Ms. Moreno…sued and lost.
Because Moreno had ”made her article available to any person with a computer and thus opened it to the public eye,” the appellate court concluded that ”[u]nder these circumstances, no reasonable person would have had an expectation of privacy regarding the published material.”
The court went on to point out that privacy, online, is pretty much non-existent. Moreno only used her first name, but that was enough with her MySpace page to track her down.
You too can be tracked down, by almost anyone, anytime.
Is is time to stop blogging…
… and start waving the Fear Flag?
I’m contacted almost weekly by some artist who will not post an image of her/his work online, or on any website, for fear of theft. Chinese clones are sited most often. I also get the odd request to process an order offline. Identity theft is most sited for this one.
And, I agree, it’s a tricky call. Chinese clones and identity theft are real, not the paranoid imaginings of old hippies who have dropped one too many acid tablets.
But the New World is not going away any time soon, and so managing becomes the order of the day. Otherwise, your real loss will be a) your credibility, b) increasing your audience, and c) keeping in touch with the New World.
Here are a few guidelines
(and I’d love to have you add more in the comments!)
- Manage your blog posts by being respectful, and not using this potent platform to carve your initials on someone’s psyche, even if they are itty bitty.
- Manage your emotions by having a support system where you can bring all things that bug on a regular basis (weekly or monthly is best).
- Manage your time so you have both the internal and external space to pay attention to what you are putting up on Cyber Space.
- Manage reactions so they become responses that serve your intentions and desires.
- Manage what you reveal on Social Media sites: enough of your personality and your personal life to create a bond to your audience, but not so much (or so trivial) that you drive them away.
Written by Ariane Goodwin
Posted under Information, Marketing Your Art
Tags: blog posts, blogger, Cynthia Moreno, fear, Internet, management, privacy, social media, Superior Court of Fresno County
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466 days ago,
Sari said:
What made the internet great was that real people were talking about real things…Fear will make the internet mediocre…I see it on twitter now…As soon as the celebrities joined, all the quality people shut up, because it was no longer a community of like minded people seeking intellectual nourishment…
I remember an artist on Ebay who had a link to a blog, about how she cleansed her body of Depo Provera using a raw diet…
Thousands flocked to her blog & she started selling like crazy…She is called The Raw Artist…you’ve probably heard of her…Her bravery is what made her special…Is her art good? yes, good enough…But the person behind the work makes it great…
Safe is boring…(but I guess you won’t get into trouble…)
[Reply]
466 days ago,
Ariane Goodwin said:
Sari…I definitely wasn’t thinking that ‘safe’ was the right road to travel when I wrote that post. I think you can be as edgy and “hanging-from-your-fingernails-on-a-cliff” as you want to be, as long as your readers/audience feels respected. As for celebrities on Twitter…I may be naive, but my sense is that once you find your tribe, the solid people are in there. Celebs and fanfare are for people who don’t have a focus or game plan.
[Reply]
460 days ago,
Suzanne Lorenz said:
I have always wondered how “safe” it is to post photographs and other works of art. I have a blog where I post my photographs, my feeling was that my audience was so small, family and freinds, it would never be a problem. It never occurred to me that what I wrote or photographed would become public news.
[Reply]
460 days ago,
Ariane Goodwin, Ed.D. said:
Suzanne,
Funny that feeling of intimacy and connection is actually world wide (www – get it? :-).
But the good news is– it’s world wide!
You are now the gatekeeper of “safe,” not the other way around, which is how it’s been for decades. You don’t have to stop posting or uploading, you just have to rearrange your consciousness and awareness so you can grow and thrive in this New World we are all co-creating by
a) writing only that which you don’t mind someone else buzzing around the world and
b) making sure your images are a low resolution with a discrete watermark/signature.
(Take a look at Sheila Finklestein’s Tulips on “Friday’s Featured Artist” – http://smartistcareerblog.com/ )
[Reply]
460 days ago,
Sari said:
Thank you Ariane…I do have high resolution images on a few sites, mostly because I don’t store things on my own computer & I use the files directly from the internet myself as I need them…I guess I also like the visual aesthetic punch of the high res. look, & am not crazy about watermarks, though some works get them…I focus on originals though, &
remember Christo & Jeanne Claude saying they don’t make anything from reproductions of their work-so weren’t directing their energies toward that angle…(I was happily able to download a copyright free image of The Gates & have it printed & framed, because I couldn’t go in person…)
In terms of blogs, I took the web log meaning literally, insofar as the diary idea, for myself first, to document thoughts & ideas & work on concepts…It has helped me to work through complex works by seeing them online & revisiting them on occasion…I find when I censor that flow, I lose important thoughts…It seems my best ideas are often the ones that may not entirely be acceptable to everyone…
When you say respect, I’m not sure what you mean…(not being disrespectful here)…On a certain level I find it respectful to allow people the freedom to pick & choose from material, without censoring the information, so it becomes trite…It is so easy to click to another site if you don’t like something, & why try to please everyone?
On another note, I have just ordered your new CD & am anxiously waiting to hear your thoughts more filled out…Your insights so far have been insightful(sorry redundant) & helpful in practical applications so far…
It is great to have a new voice to listen to, as I fear poor Alyson tires of me…thanks…
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