Question of the Week No. 2

 When reporting on allegations of sexual assault against women, most news organizations will identify the alleged perpetrator but will not identify the name of the alleged victim without express permission from the victim.  Some argue this policy is unfair to the accused and allows women to make false accusations without any accountability.  Others argue that identifying the victim is too privacy-invasive, will essentially victimize the woman a second time and discourage women from coming forward.

Do you agree with the above stated policy?

Takeaways for Week 3 by Professor Dryer

 

EU Privacy

1. The EU views privacy much like they view property. Privacy rights thus protect that privacy the same way that they protect property. This means that citizens of the EU have many of the same rights to control their privacy as they do with their property.
2. Europe also tends to value privacy interests above free speech interests, which leads to stricter privacy protections at some expense of free speech rights.
3. One of the common ways that the Europe address privacy is by requiring affirmative consent before personal data may be collected by others. This means that a person must intentionally "opt in" to have their data collected rather than only having the ability to "opt out" with the default being opted in.

US Privacy

1. The US places immense value on free speech, which often comes at the cost of the prioritization of free speech over rights to privacy. 
2. There is no nationwide federal law governing privacy.  Most privacy laws are state enacted and the few federal privacy laws that exist are focused on specific topics like medical records or educational records. This leads to inconsistent and often unequal privacy protections depending on where a citizen lives.
3. While both the EU and the US have data collection protection laws for children, the US only requires parental consent to collect data if the child is under the age of 13.  In Europe, parental consent is required if the child is 16 or younger. 

EU "Right to be Forgotten"

The EU has instituted a "Right to be Forgotten" which includes two components.  First, a person may request a "holder" of personal information about an individual to remove the information if certain conditions are met and the holder must comply unless there is a public interest in the the information.  Second, a person may request a search engine to delink the information from a person's name if the information is "inadequate, irrelevant or excessive." There are several conditions that might override an individual's "right to be forgotten" which can be found here: EU Right to be Forgotten 

 Reasonable Expectation of Privacy

1. There exists a reasonable expectation of privacy only when a person's behavior indicates that they desired to keep something private.
2. If a person shows little or no intention to keep a fact private, then their reasonable expectation of privacy is waived, and that fact is no longer considered something that is private in nature, and thus not something that should be protected under privacy laws.
3. Raza, or the "Star Wars Kid," likely waived his reasonable expectation of privacy when he recorded himself on a tape that was not his own, and then left it unprotected for anyone to discover. This meant that, although he was bullied significantly for the video, there was likely no significant argument to removing it from YouTube to protect his privacy.

Private Company "Right to be Forgotten" Policies

Many companies have policies or community standards that protect the privacy of individuals in certain circumstances, even without government intervention. Examples include removing child pornography or the posting of intimate images with consent.

 Question of the Week: Should the U.S. Congress statutorily enact a "right to be forgotten"?

The class was divided on this issue with 6 students answering "yes" and 8 students answering "no."

We discussed whether is would be good or bad public policy to remove or delink an individual's past criminal behavior in specific factual contexts.  The factors to be considered included the age of the individual when the crime was committed, the nature and severity of the crime. the passage of time and whether the public has a continuing interest in knowing the information.

The Privacy to Our Own Name

Introduction 

“Privacy is dead, and social media holds the smoking gun” - Pete Cashmore

As a social media user, it is important to be cautious of the information we choose to share on our media platforms. We constantly share our name, age, and birthdate to many social media platforms without understanding the importance of such sensitive information. Some social media platforms will allow you to have a preferred name that you’re referred to as or a name that will keep your identity anonymous. However, there have been several social media platforms that have required their users to provide their real name in order to use their services.

The online platforms that have implemented this Real-Name Policy believed it would help improve comments and avoid any unnecessary behavior from users that utilize the comment sections. This “Real Name Policy” is also said to help prevent fake profiles to ensure a victim’s identity is protected. However, I believe that a “Real Name Policy” will not stop people from creating fake profiles to cause harm to other individuals online. This type of mandatory policy will affect the privacy of many users who choose to hide their real name and prefer another name. 

Mandatory Real Name Policies on all platforms is unfair because it limits an individual's right to have a reasonable expectation of privacy. An individual should have the right to have a private social media account and should not have to disclose their birth name. This protects the individual from exposing their identity if they are choosing to be private about the information they share online. 

Posting of Unnecessary Comments 

Trolling is common on many social media platforms. Trollers usually do not tend to identify themselves with their birth name. This allows them to be anonymous and post whatever they want without any accountability for their comments. In 2007, South Korea mandated that all websites that reached over 100k viewers to require them to register with their Birth Name. They hoped to reduce these comments because they believed that these trollers would feel a fear of judgment if they made a negative comment. However, The policy had seemed to only reduce the unnecessary comments to about less than .09%. 

Randi Zuckerberg said “People behave a lot better when they have their real names down…” I do agree that people would probably be more careful with their comments if their birth names were to be displayed with their comments. It would prevent people from commenting without thinking thoroughly given that it wouldn’t be anonymous. However, it is important to know that you have a fundamental right of privacy if you choose to be private with your posts.

Information being Exposed

When we register to use the services of a social media platform, we give out our name, age, and date of birth. All this information is very sensitive and it is not safe if we share this information with these platforms. Although one may think this information is safe, you could be at a risk of being doxxed. Personal information such as your home address, phone numbers, and employers can be obtained. Once a person’s information is found, it could be released risking the person's safety. 

Not only can your personal information become revealed, but it can also be stolen through Identity theft. This usually occurs when someone uses your name, birth date, or social security number to impersonate you. However, with the ability to control our preferred name, this could help prevent too much information from being revealed. 

Conclusion

A Real Name Policy mandate on all websites has both a beneficial impact and a negative impact. A Real Name Policy may prevent people from creating fake accounts and attacking other individuals. This also can help assure that people will start to become accountable for the harmful things they publish on social media. However, I personally believe that we should have the right to be anonymous and have the right to keep my personal information private to a certain extent. Keeping your real name private will allow you to keep your personal life private and avoid unwanted individuals from obtaining that information.

Sources

Feeney, Nolan. “Facebook: Mark Zuckerberg Defends 'Real Names' Policy.” Time, Time, 1 July 2015, time.com/3943322/facebook-real-name-policy-mark-zuckerberg/.

Ferenstein, Gregory. “Surprisingly Good Evidence That Real Name Policies Fail to Improve Comments.” TechCrunch, 29 July 2012, techcrunch.com/2012/07/29/surprisingly-good-evidence-that-real-name-policies-fail-to-improve-comments/.

Suciu, Peter. “There Isn't Enough Privacy on Social Media and That Is a Real Problem.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 12 Oct. 2022, www.forbes.com/sites/petersuciu/2020/06/26/there-isnt-enough-privacy-on-social-media-and-that-is-a-real-problem/?sh=760dbce444f1.

Yale Journal of International Affairs. “Real Names and Responsible Speech: The Cases of South Korea, China, and Facebook.” Yale Journal of International Affairs, Yale Journal of International Affairs, 10 Apr. 2020, www.yalejournal.org/publications/real-names-and-responsible-speech-the-cases-of-south-korea-china-and-facebook.

Is Anonymity Worth the Cost?

As the internet gained popularity, anonymity allowed for individuals to explore the world wide web without having to worry about who or what they were being watched by. This allowed people to freely share opinions, communicate with strangers via chat rooms, and also view content without sharing their identity. At the beginning, this seemed like a feature of the internet, something that was a newly opened door that had little to no harm. But as the internet has evolved, so have the ramifications of anonymity.

Many social media sites and online platforms have begun to enact real name policies. These policies require some form of verification that you are who you say you are, and that you supply a name in the first place. These policies can help to protect individuals from anonymous harassment and even false information. Through enacting real name policies, online platforms can also maintain accountability on their site.

Anonymity provides a mask to people, creating an environment where it is significantly easier to get away with doing things. Through the use of anonymous speech, individuals gain the ability to use their online profiles to potentially harm other people while hiding behind a mask. Just like how people act differently when someone is watching, people also act differently when their identity isn’t readily available. 

The Harms of Anonymity

People gain the confidence to insult individuals and to lie about others when there is no risk of being caught. This brings us to the issue of maintaining accountability in an anonymous world. In order to seek justice, individuals need to know who it is that has harmed them. If we live in a world where nobody ever has to worry about being caught online, people will say whatever they want to say at the expense of others' well-being. Cyber bullying has become an increasingly large issue that schools and society as a whole has to deal with. Many different factors contribute to cyberbullying, but anonymity makes it significantly easier to get away with and increases the likelihood of issues. 

I’m sure that many of us have encountered anonymous text forums in our life, and we probably all know somebody who has experienced cyberbullying on these forums. One example that comes to mind is the anonymous YOLO posts that were all over Snapchat. Most people I know didn’t have too many issues with these posts, but a few of my friends did encounter cyberbullying as soon as an anonymous forum was opened up to them, and it had serious impacts on their mental health. Some cases, such as 16 year old Carson Bride’s experience in 2020, have lead to suicide. Bride’s family sued Snapchat and the anonymous messaging apps YOLO and LMK for failing to comply with their own policies surrounding cyberbullying. 

The Benefits of Anonymity

It is undeniable that anonymity has adverse effects on people’s mental health and communication online, but there are some benefits to anonymity. One of the primary advantages of anonymity is that it allows for people to be themselves without worrying about what other people think. Without being able to mask their true identity, some people are not confident enough to speak up online, and so anonymity grants them the ability to do so, helping to boost their confidence. It also allows people to express things without revealing private information. People can enter chat rooms that connect them to like minded individuals without having to share private information, and this can protect people from facing discrimination in the “real” world based on something they said online that isn’t truly harmful, for example sexual orientation.

So, should a real names policy be enacted on all online platforms?

Personally, I think that a real names policy is good in some circumstances but shouldn't always be applied. The real names policy allows for people to be protected online from harassment, but it also blocks some freedom of speech and can reveal information that people aren’t ready to reveal. There needs to be a way to hold people accountable for their actions, and that falls on the companies to ensure the safety of their clients.

For the security of people, I think that a compromise could be made that doesn’t necessarily involve real names in all circumstances. All anonymous sites should collect some information to hold people accountable in the event that an issue does arise. They can have you create a profile that is linked to you, but doesn’t reveal who you are to the public. One site that I feel does this pretty well is Reddit, where you create a completely anonymous profile but it’s still linked to your email address so that you know that the information you post is still tied to you. This can ensure the safety of others by holding people accountable for their actions, and some of the confidence can be removed from the cyberbullying aspect of anonymity. But if there is an issue, is it already too late?

Sources

Barlett, Christopher. “Anonymously Hurting Others Online:The Effect of Anonymity on Cyberbullying Frequency.” American Psychological Association, American Psychological Association, 2013, https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2013-38201-001. 

Davenport, David. Anonymity on the Internet: Why the Price May Be Too High - Csl.mtu.edu. https://www.csl.mtu.edu/cs6461/www/Reading/Davenport02.pdf. 

Dean, Sam. “A Teen Who Was Bullied on Snapchat Died. His Mom Is Suing to Hold Social Media Liable.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 10 May 2021, https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-05-10/lawsuit-snap-teen-suicide-yolo-lmk. 

“How Anonymity Online Can Fuel Cyberbullying - CNN Video.” CNN, Cable News Network, 3 Aug. 2017, https://www.cnn.com/videos/cnnmoney/2017/08/03/how-anonymity-online-can-fuel-cyberbullying.cnn-tech. 

Wang, Zuoming. Anonymity Effects and Implications in the Virtual Environment: From Crowd to Computer-Mediated Communication. Scientific Research Publishing, 16 Nov. 2017, https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=81714. 

“Who Is Harmed by a ‘Real Names’ Policy?” Geek Feminism Wiki, https://geekfeminism.fandom.com/wiki/Who_is_harmed_by_a_%22Real_Names%22_policy%3F.

Question of the Week No. 1

 Should the U.S Congress  statutorily adopt a "right to be forgotten"?

STAR WAR'S KID: The Unintended Consequences of Virality

By Ryan Deng

INTRODUCTION

In November 2002, Ghyslain Raza , an overweight 14-year-old Canadian school boy, filmed himself at a high school studio for a class project. In the filmed video, Raza mimicked Darth Maul from the famous movie series Star Wars by waving around a golf ball retriever as his toy lightsaber, Raza mistakenly left the tape in the studio where another student discovered the tape and, without Raza’s permission, circulated the videotape around the school. In April 2003, another student uploaded the video to the internet with the title Jackass_starwars_funny.wmv and a third student posted the video on YouTube. In the coming months, the viral video of Raza amassed hundreds of millions of views on numerous platforms, and Raza became coined the "Star Wars Kid." Raza was the subject of intense cyberbullying, ridicule and harassment. Commenters said he should “kill himself” and made fun of his weight. Raza eventually dropped out of school and he became depressed and was entered into the psychiatric ward for children due to constant berating of his character.

Raza's parents eventually took legal action and sued the families of all three students initially involved in circulating the embarrassing video of their son. In April 2006, both parties agreed upon a confidential settlement, and the footage ultimately became viewed more than 900 million times! Numerous petitions arose in support of Raza to get roles in upcoming Star War Movie projects, with one petition receiving over 140,000 signatures for Episode III - Revenge of the Sith. In a more recent interview by Raza conducted by CBR news, Raza stated that to this day," there is an element of surrealism in all of this." Raza initially tried to distance himself from the video as much as possible, not wanting to be recognized and bullied any further. However, several years later Raza stepped forward and began to use his situation to help spread a message of anti-bullying on the internet and the effects that cyberbullying can have on individuals.

THE ISSUE OF A REASONABLE EXPECTATION OF PRIVACY

Many Americans mistakenly believe they have an absolute right to Privacy regarding their daily activities, the content of their conversations, and so forth. Yet, this misconstrued basis for which many Americans believe their Privacy exists is never once stated in the Constitution but instead is inferred from the 1st, 3rd, and 4th amendments within the Constitution. As such, typically, in a court of law to determine whether an invasion of one's Privacy has been made, a two-prong test is conducted to deduce whether, first, an individual shows "a subjective expectation that his activities or items would be private" and second, "that his subjective expectation of privacy is one in which society considers reasonable." The heightened ambiguity from these vague amendments also leads to loose attempts to define one's Privacy through "common law protections." Generally speaking, the provisions of which one can sue accordingly with these protections consist of five discrete rights of an individual that must never be violated. These five rights include intrusion upon seclusion, publicity that discloses private information, false-light advertising, appropriation of name or likeness, and theft of trade secrets.

LEGAL RAMIFICATIONS

With Raza's video, however, we find that first, with the reasonable expectation of Privacy, Raza initially did have an expectation, at just 14 years old, that a video he filmed with no one else present would remain private from the public. However, because he utilized camera equipment at the high school studio and left the camera at the studio individual could have accessed the footage. Given Raza's negligence and his poor care of the footage and the frequency at which that camera is used by others, it cannot be argued that he maintained an expectation of privacy in the videotape. Based solely on this two-pronged test, the legal consensus is that while the situation could be better for Raza, it should not be addressed legally in court and has no constitutional basis. However, there may be some applicable "common law protections" for Raza. Because Raza was harassed and bullied as a result of the dissemination of the video without his consent, those protections could serve as a benchmark for Raza to sue for damages. It would depend on the common law of Canada and whether it is similar to the law in the U.S.

PUNISHMENT BY THE SCHOOL?

As for punishment for those who spread the videos themselves, or engaged in any cyberbullying, any disciplinary action enforced by the school would revolve around the school's individual policy. However, due to the sheer volume of cyberbullying on the interconnected web we frequently use, some schools have shifted from prevention to treatment. Offering activities in school and optimistic character reinforcement in assemblies, these intervention programs serve as guidance for future students who may find themselves in situations such as Raza to educate them on the consequences of cyberbullying and how to seek resources for help.

MY OPINION

The sad truth of the Star Wars Kid saga is that it is all too common in the Internet Age. Time and time again embarrassing videos/pictures from people’s pasts resurface, or videos/pictures that were not meant to be seen by the public. In this evolving age of technology and rapid publication of videos we should center our conversation on the invasion of privacy based on ethics. The ability of a user to publish a video should not be bound by legal matters but rather by an unofficial rule that allows those in videos, such as Raza, to express their concern and demonstrate their request to remove the video from the internet. The European Union, with its “right to be forgotten” allows this to happen. In the future, I hope for society to find the proper moral and ethical obligations when sharing videos, such as Raza's, to respect those included in videos and promote and foster a safer and more friendly online environment. Otherwise, we all risk becoming the next Star Wars Kid.

Sources:

River, Julie. “Star Wars Kid Opens up about Harassment Sparked by Viral 2000s Video.” CBR, 2 Apr. 2022, www.cbr.com/star-wars-kid-harassment-from-viral-2000s-video/. Accessed 18 Jan. 2023.

Taylor, Chris. “Reconsidering “Star Wars Kid,” the Early Internet’s Meanest Moment.” Mashable, 28 Oct. 2020, mashable.com/article/star-wars-kid-cyberbullying.

Report, Wired News. “Star Wars Kid Files Lawsuit.” Wired, www.wired.com/2003/07/star-wars-kid-files-lawsuit/#:~:text=Star%20Wars%20Kid%20Files%20Lawsuit%20The%20parents%20of. Accessed 18 Jan. 2023.

ASO staff writers. “Addressing Cyberbullying in School: Prevention and Victim Support.” AccreditedSchoolsOnline.org, AccreditedSchoolsOnline.org, 21 Feb. 2019, www.accreditedschoolsonline.org/resources/cyberbullying-prevention-and-support/.

Wolford, Ben. “Everything You Need to Know about the “Right to Be Forgotten” - GDPR.eu.” GDPR.eu, 5 Nov. 2018, gdpr.eu/right-to-be-forgotten/.

“Bullying and Cyberbullying | SchoolSafety.gov.” Www.schoolsafety.gov, www.schoolsafety.gov/bullying-and-cyberbullying.

Takeaways for Week 2

•  Privacy matters for a variety of reasons, and this week we started with the idea that information is power, and privacy acts as a check on that power. Information gathered on you can be used in a variety of ways, not only within a criminal context but also through marketing, models, and predictions on your behavior.
• Alongside this point your behavior is likely to change if you are aware that you are being observed, if you really have "nothing to hide" you are likely to try to keep it that way if you are aware that you are under surveillance.
• There are privacy concerns not only in the collection of information, but also in how your information is stored, used, aggregated, who has access, and how long it will be stored for. Important questions to ask about your information include: Who is collecting it? Who has access to this information? Will it be shared? If it is stored how will it be secured? How long will it be stored for? Do I have the right to access and correct my own information?
•  The aggregation of information can be particularly effective in whittling away protections, as models can be built to accurately predict your behavior, and it is impossible to refute what you have not yet done.Alongside this, the aggregation of information that you have consented to collection can be used to glean information that may be considered intimate, such as targets use of shopping patterns to predict pregnancy.
  
• The argument that those with nothing to hide should not value their own privacy begins in a flawed manor, everyone has something to hide, they just may not realize they are hiding it. Likewise even if the behaviors or information you are attempting to hide are not criminal, you may still not want them recorded or disclosed. 
• In our reading we saw that privacy being set against societal interests is a false dichotomy, as strong privacy rights for individuals can actually lead to a strong society as a whole. While the government may attempt to justify the NSA's mass surveillance of phones within the context of national security, in reality this guts the 4th amendment and was deemed unconstitutional.
• Informed consent is important, but often not required. Because consent is often used as the justification for the use of collection and use of data, many companies will use a vague and open ended ToS in order to cover any privacy concerns that may arise in the future.
• Our reading outlined 4 types of privacy concerns, many of which align with what I covered earlier: Information collection, information processing, information dissemination, and invasion of privacy.
• Different institutions have various pros and cons for protecting privacy, legislation is slow but enforces compliance. The courts are more flexible and can make rulings based on the facts of an individual case, but by their very nature are unable to act until after the damage is done. the individual knows what it is that is most important to them, and can take actions in the moment to protect their own privacy, however often these actions are not feasible with how much we rely on technology.
  

Question of the Week No. 1

 Should the U.S. Congress statutorily recognize a “right to be forgotten”? 

Takeaways for Week No. 1

 Maxwell Smith

• The Constitution does not explicitly protect an individual's privacy. It is only an inferred right from the 1st, 3rd, and 4th amendments of the Constitution. Additionally, the United States does not recognize Privacy as a universal right.

• Individuals may sue if they have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" which is invaded by another individual or company by the common law protections of privacy. If your privacy is infringed upon by another individual, you must defend yourself legally.

•  Privacy is not defined as one singular concept or idea. Privacy's wide scope causes all privacy cases to be handled on a case-by-case basis. While the definition's fluidity allows privacy to be applied to many situations to protect the individual, the loose definition could also enable prosecutors to attack what an individual sees as their right to privacy. This causes major privacy issues to be disputed heavily in court such as Carpenter v. United States, Katz v. United States, and Kilo v. Jones.

• Technology such as cell phones has made the Third Party Doctrine more nuanced, as seen in United States v. Carpenter. While the Supreme Court ruled that a warrant would need to be issued for cell-phone records, this is not the case with other online information. Online information such as emails, GPS location of a vehicle, chatrooms, and social media have no reasonable expectation of privacy.

• The right to privacy is subjective. For instance, you have the right to privacy in the home however, if you leave your blinds open, you no longer have a "reasonable expectation of privacy."

Welcome to the Class Blog

 Are we hearing the death rattle of personal privacy or is privacy already dead?

Will drones, ubiquitous video cameras, automatic license plate readers, GPS enabled mobile devices, Stingrays, and the internet of things usher in a new era of around the clock surveillance where our everyday movements and activities are tracked by government, businesses and our neighbors alike?  

Will facial recognition, DNA databases and other biometric technologies render anonymity a thing of the past?  

Will data aggregators become so proficient at mining personal information that our lives become an open book for anyone to peruse with 15 minutes of online research or $4.99 to buy a personal profile?   

Has our infatuation with sharing, as embodied by Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, Instagram and other social networking sites fundamentally altered our definition of privacy?  

Are we willing to trade off whatever  privacy we may have in exchange for safety, convenience, discounts or free services?

 Are the  legal underpinnings of privacy, painstakingly developed over decades through a case by case judicial process, no longer suitable for the fast moving information age?   

Will Congress or the states weigh in on what promises over the next few years to be an epic clash between the values of privacy and transparency?

These and other questions are becoming front and center in our national debate and will be our focus in class as we address the challenges of protecting privacy in an age of information abundance.

Get ready for a fun ride!