As I write this, I’m in the mist of an IM session with a friend who found her personal information on a website that she never published it to. As a fellow business owner, I could understand her angst towards such info being out there – especially in light of information theft and personal security concerns.
But, one of the sticky points centered around the implications of the sharing culture that we are firmly in the mist of. Specifically, she remarked about how people seem to take no thought to the implications of sharing content, or even their obligations to friends and family when sharing content that contains them. In light of this’s site’s focus around mobile devices, and what they do enable, its also appropriate to look at mobile in these contexts.
Implications of Sharing Content
Many people visit websites and freely share content without clearly understanding what could be done with the information (or the metadata around that information). In some cases, this is because we took the easy way out and “just clicked OK” instead of reading the terms of service. Other times, it because we simply just don’t understand the technology enough to know that there is a positive and negative implication to sharing content.
What are some of these implications? Here are a few based on that conversation that sparked this topic:
- Greater visibility into personal life
- Visibility into personal relationships
- Disclosure of private opinion
- Disclosure of private (to a company or organization) information
Yes, usually speaking, we know about these implications, but we share anyways because its one part the culture, and another part a value assessment (the positive implications outweigh the negative).
But, what happens when those implications turn negative (for example, Facebook and LinkedIn changes their terms of service for their benefit but exposes or curtails your previously held positive value)? Do the implications matter anew, or do we roll with the punches, not taking personal responsibility for the information exchange we have equal stake in?
Obligations to Friends and Family
There’s another side of this managing and sharing of information online that we need to consider before even logging or sharing it – that is, the opinions of friends and family. The same friend referenced above spoke about a family member who posted pictures of her on Facebook, but she wasn’t on Facebook nor gave permission for those pictures to be posted. By law, she would be able to request that the pictures be removed; however, by the nature of the Facebook service, the only way she’d know that pictures of her were published is if someone inside of the service network told her.
In effect, the family member didn’t observe solid manners when posting those pictures by asking for permission first. Yes, its usually implied permission that we take (note: not “give”) when posting pictures of someone online. But, if we are not able to execute their right to change what is shared about them, then we effectively have denied them their rightful voice.
Enter Mobile, and Several More Questions Than Answers
This is where it gets extremely hard to manage mobile. On one end, we can do the right thing by taking pictures or noting content of others, making public only those items which they allow. But, on a mobile device, this is essentially letting someone into your “personal space” and then making the call to go forward or not.
Technically speaking, mobile devices, platforms, and networks don’t allow us the luxury of knowing when someone has taken a picture or written something about us. That would require a level of monitoring and filtering that current networks can’t take, current devices can’t stayed powered for, and current governments just won’t broach (usually).
Within the mobile industry, it is well understood that there’s a ton of money and influence to be made off of understanding and managing the content and the metadata around the content of what is produced on a mobile device. As a part of those topics we talked about in terms of where the Body needs to beef up within the next 10 years, information analytics and intelligence is pretty major. We need to not just understand this as an industry or organization though; there’s got to be a personal understanding towards what exactly we have in our hands towards all the information being generated and tracked. And that means not only to read the terms of service, but to know the law in regards to what to do if your privacy has been compromised.
Scriptural Response
Spiritually, the call is to take the luxury of sharing and connecting as a part of our obligation to “live peaceably with all” (Romans 12:18) by putting their perspectives in front of our own (Phillipians 2:3-5). We view our freedom to share in light of the fact that others have something to gain and lose if we aren’t careful of the rules (laws) and opportunities that others can take advantage of. And when presented with a situation that doesn’t work to our advantage, we respectfully, and rightly, take it up with those with the power to change or influence change so that at the end of the day, whatever we shared has given someone the ability to grow in Christ. And if someone becomes offended in the mist of this, we handle this not with the mindset to slander or take revenge, but to extend the same grace to them as we’ve been extended – understanding that the implications of sowing love, joy, grace, peace, and mercy, is a bumper crop of unity (John 17:20-26).
Things You Can Do
If you’ve been the victim of personal information being posted online, or identity theft, your service provider(s), local and national governments, and in some cases even internet service providers/domain hosting companies have policies in place to help rectify the issue. Unfortunately, its much harder to undo the damage than it is to inflict it; but in your communications, be sure to alert those in public office your concerns as it is most likely on their agenda as well (many influential voice can help give rise to a change in this behavior).
Don’t put information online that you don’t want to come back and haunt you later. Do your best to own the information that you do put online (for example: own the servers and/or the software that creates the content, have the ability to leave the service and take your data with you (see The Data Portability Project,), and just use good sense.
A good deal of the activity in mobile has talked about the potential for video media to be a catalyst for conversations, conversions, and education/discipleship. Here’s a report sent from the Kiosk Evangelism Project about such a change happening in SE India:
Always nice to see others putting together various experiments and implementations of edge-case technologies. This one, from the folks at Church Mag is taking the idea of QR Codes, and mapping some interactive and sharing elements to it. Here’s a snippet of the experiment:
I’m pretty open when it comes to letting people see my mobile devices. I’m a bit less so when it comes to others using theM. One of the things that I have opened up a bit with has been with letting kids use my iPad when we adults are having our conversational moments. And this is good – I usually leave them with simple rules: (a) don’t do anything but use one of the two drawing apps; (b) don’t touch any of the existing artwork; (c) don’t drop it.
A few notes before the holiday pause:
Mobile and the Arts
Wednesday, July 28th, 2010One of the brothers that I sit with is a poet. He and I have a great time talking about many of the topics that he comes up with and how these topics many times just come out of nowhere. From time to time, we’ll start on a meme and prose starts to flow as the language of our conversations. And it never fails that neither of us records or writes it down. It lasts for a moment, and the memory of the experience is great, but we both know that it would be great to capture that moment, and look at it later for wisdom and recollection.
In the same vein, I always wonder about those moments with the other arts, where we are there to observe, but many times don’t think to take the opportunity to record a snippet (video, audio, or still image) of the opportunity. Yes, there are some moments where social rules or even a stated request might prohibit such recording, but when it permissible, how often do we take in some of those moments for recollection?
If you do collect those moments, how do you share it either with yourself in the future, or with others? Does it even matter that it is even something you can view/hear later, or does just the moment to archive that event pass as just what was needed? I know that I find myself looking back on images, poetry, and even music from years ago every so often to train my memory not to forget, but I’ve also noticed that there are some stores of media that I rarely go back to – its like I captured them for the moment, but it’s becoming a bit of an unused/unreferenced digital pile.
Going a bit back to the title: is mobile a valuable tool to use to capture the art of the moment? Do you find it enriching for you or others to use mobile in those moments.
Tags: arts, digital archives, mobility, photography, sharing, tech
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