Naked on Facebook, Orgy in Pulau Perhentian

News of wild, naked teenage parties on beautiful Pulau Perhentian, Terengganu, brings to mind our narcissistic tendency to enjoy sharing as much as possible.

The fact that the 200 teenagers who attended the sex orgy on the island were invited via Facebook highlights how social networks have gotten us in touch with our inner exhibitionist.

Many of us now get up in the morning and immediately update our Facebook or Twitter account. We have pictures of ourselves tagged by others on Facebook and these are pictures we may actually want to hide.

Some Facebook users talk about their antidepressants or post pictures of themselves violating the law or upload videos of themselves in compromising positions. Two Domino’s employees were fired for such a stunt and another company fired an employee who was actively on Facebook while on medical leave. There are others sending naked or semi-naked pictures of themselves via their cell phones.

There was the “Quiet” project run by Internet entrepreneur Josh Harris. Harris asked 100 people to live under constant surveillance in an underground bunker for 30 days, broadcasting all their actions to everyone else in the space. The project demonstrated that we would sacrifice privacy for public recognition.

As we continue to display our lives to the eyes of the World Wide Web, are we trumping our very notion of and right to privacy? Are we over-sharing personal information on Facebook? Are we inviting voyeurism into our lives as we frantically update our Twitter accounts from our Blackberrys and celebrating when we gain a new follower?

According to a study of Internet users 18 and older, a full 60% don’t worry about the amount of information that is available about them online, and only 38% have taken measures to limit such information.

If you care about privacy, the World Wide Web is a scary place. If you understand the implications of where and how your Facebook postings, Youtube videos or Gmail and Yahoo emails are stored, you might be more careful or not use these everyday tools as often.

Not only could those in employment get fired for those regrettable postings, but those looking for jobs could also find difficulty getting jobs as more employers turn to social networks to screen potential employees. The many Sarawakian teenagers and students who flaunt their pub romps and drinking sprees on Facebook may need to tone down on such postings. If there are pictures of a company manager or CEO at a beer bash 20 years ago, it could change things. JPA may withdraw your scholarship for an anti-establishment comment that your college mate didn’t like.

The uproar over CTOS, the credit tip-off service that banks in Malaysia use, has not generated enough concern for our own privacy, even though CTOS helped make our lives really miserable by aggregating our personal information and providing them to banks without our consent. What would it take for us to be really concerned about our privacy on social networks and other channels? It would need a big enough and a costly enough unfortunate incident. The following incidences give us hindsight and a glimpse of what could be the future.

1. Persistent Cookies Enforcement.

A new precedent may be set soon for governments around the world to follow as the US government is proposing that government agencies use single-session and multi-session cookies, including persistent cookies, to track users – as long as security and privacy standards governing the collection and tracking of information are met. The broad use of Web cookies on government sites could allow the mass collection of personal information. It won’t be long before the Malaysian government follow suit.

2. Deep Packet Inspection.

Webwise, a behavioural advertising technology from Phorm, a London-based startup has created a privacy controversy. Webwise uses “deep packet inspection”, which lets it see the content of Web traffic so that it may better track consumer behaviour and creates profiles that let it serve up more targeted ads. Several British ISPs say they would use Webwise to serve up ads more effectively. The US government has begun deliberations on permitting deep-packet inspection.

Already the Malaysian government has the capability to eavesdrop our cell phone conversations. The government could already have an arsenal of profiling data that could be used to influence voters and the public.

3. IP Address.

The German courts are in the process of considering whether an IP address is personally identifiable information that needs to be protected. No matter what the courts decide, citizens and consumers must regard their IP address as akin to their IC number.

4. Tidbits That Marketers Drool Over.

When Facebook implemented its Beacon application, tens of thousands of users revolted. The application is a targeted advertising tool that broadcast what Facebook users were buying (at Beacon’s partner sites) by posting ”stories” about it on their status feeds. While there are plenty of Facebook users who wanted to know what their friends were buying, there were also those who didn’t want that information public. One guy bought a nice ring as a surprise for his wife, who subsequently saw it on his Facebook page and asked him who it was for.

5. Online Prowlers.

We’ve seen postings of people harassing each other on Facebook. Soon, companies will have to deal with employees harassing each other in public via Facebook. Especially when there is a sense of anonymity for people when they sit in front of a computer. They say things to a computer they wouldn’t to a real person.

6. Location Aware.

You may have used Google Maps and experienced the way Google Maps’ Street View exposes location information. Angry activists have mashed up Google Maps with a public donations database and revealed home addresses of people who contributed money to defeat their cause.

Can the majority remain unconcerned with the repercussions that sharing personal information online might bring?

Watch for status update that says, "On the way to Pulau Perhentian".