| About InfoWorld : Advertise : Subscribe : Contact Us : Awards : Events : Store |
 |
||||
|
||||
 |
||||
 |
|
|||
 |
||||
|
|
|
||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 COLUMN
Private space or public: Just what sort of creature is the Internet? One of the questions still open -- at least to those who think deeply about it -- is whether the Internet is a public space or a private one. Although this may sound like one of those things philosophy students argue about while they wait for another round of beer, the implications are far-reaching.
Complicating the matter is our legal system, which is, as always, ready and willing -- and far too able -- to lead us astray with complicated and convoluted rulings that rarely make sense. The Boy Scouts, the Supreme Court tells us, is a private organization that is free to practice discrimination even when meeting in a publicly funded building. Your neighborhood restaurant, on the other hand, despite being privately owned and funded, is a "public accommodation" and can't practice discrimination. A few years ago, we had to face the question of whether or not malls were public or private spaces. Despite the fact that for many communities they have replaced the "downtown" of years gone by and have become the place where neighbors meet, mall owners claimed that they were private spaces. They argued that they should be allowed to restrict the free speech rights of those seeking to solicit or harangue their fellow townsfolk. This would never have been allowed in the public square, unless the people were breaking some other law. The trouble with the Internet -- or with much of it -- is that it's inherently public. Unless someone erects barriers around the content they place on the Web, the material is accessible to all comers. Although barriers work when they're in place, they run contrary to the idea of the Web. If some material isn't going to be easily accessible, what's the point of putting it on the Web at all? Why not mail it to a selected list of people? I recently encountered the conflicted emotions that can arise from the private vs. public space debate when a local newspaper wrote a story about a matter of some controversy in the neighborhood. Residents had set up a publicly accessible bulletin board and were having a heated interchange of ideas and opinions. The newspaper printed some of the postings in the course of its reporting on the controversy and its effects on the community. One of the people whose posting was quoted wrote a letter to the newspaper complaining that the reporter had invaded his privacy and had "stolen" his posting and used it unethically in the newspaper story. At the time I found the contentions a little overblown and the accusation unfounded. I still do. Other questions have been raised regarding online support groups in which people who are victims of one sort or another meet in fully accessible bulletin boards to post their stories. Researchers who have used the postings in writing research reports have been taken to task for "invading the privacy" of the subjects. It's possible that researchers may have violated some ethical canon of their own discipline by using this material without the subject's permission; however, the claim made by some people contending that researchers trespassed on a private space doesn't seem to hold water. Suppose a demographics researcher were to go to a physical bulletin board in a college student union and take note of signs posted by those seeking a ride somewhere for the holidays. It's hard to argue that the researcher would be violating someone's right to privacy by compiling information on how many people want to go to each destination. The bulletin board is clearly public, and so are the postings on it. And it's difficult for me to see where the difference is between a publicly accessible online bulletin board and a publicly accessible physical one. Although it may be convenient for the members of the support group to use such a space for posting personal and sensitive revelations, it just doesn't seem to be appropriate. In fact it would be just as inappropriate to post those same items on a physical bulletin board where anyone could read them and then claim that the notes were private. This smacks of wanting to have it both ways: taking advantage of the public nature of the Internet to serve your own purposes but then retreating behind a wall of "privacy" when someone else wants to take advantage of that very same public nature. I think we're still pretty far from deciding just what sort of space the Internet really is. If you have any ideas, write to me at ethics_matters@infoworld.com. Carlton Vogt is the senior editor in charge of InfoWorld's e-mail newsletters. He holds graduate degrees in philosophy and theology, and has taught ethics at the college level. He also has an extensive background in technology journalism.  RELATED SUBJECTS  Business NewsDiscuss this article in our online forums MORE > SPONSORED WHITE PAPERS 
SPONSORED LINKS
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
