Privacy & Confidentiality

Privacy is a huge concern when it comes to new media. The huge draw to new media platforms such as the Internet was its anonymity. This has its pros and cons - while on one hand, people feel freer to say whats on their mind, it's that exact freedom that can make parts of the internet.... difficult to deal with. A quick browse of almost any youtube video's comments reveals some of the most vulgar and ill tempered things I've ever heard a person say. Clearly, the anonymity afforded by the internet is a double edged sword. However, there are bigger concerns. With the proliferation of social networking sites such as facebook, as well as mobile platforms for them to run on - laptops, smartphones, tablets, etc... another privacy issue - what if one of the portable devices gets lost or stolen? It's a lot harder to keep track of and maintain these different accounts. But let me get back on topic.

If that weren't a big enough cause for concern, many of these social networking sites are allowing you to link accounts together. While sometimes the ease of use is invaluable, and I personally have linked this blogger account, my gmail account, and my youtube account, this makes it more of a security risk. Aside from that, linking all these accounts together reduces the anonymity that helped make these forms of new media so successful. While I think there's still plenty of room to be as visible or invisible as you want to be, I feel that we're slowly reaching a point where remaining completely anonymous will no longer be an option.