Whither the individual? Social media gone full circle, making individuals become unsociable!

Something that occurred to me recently was not only the incredible impact that social media have had on people's lives, but additionally, how they have purposefully invaded the privacy of the individual, and further, that they have even affected one's ability to appear to be an individual, anymore. 

Initially, there was not too much concern over privacy in social media use, even if people were slow to realize that basically anyone with a computer and internet access could dig into your Facebook profile, and see photos not only of your family and friends, but also as was the case for many members, to peruse their entire social life and circle, all from the comfort of the spying eye's own home. The photos can be blown up, easily copied, and even messed with as the end-user sees fit. Quite why anyone would want, say, photos of themselves on sandy beaches in tiny bikinis on holiday, being readily available to their teachers, bosses, co-workers, bartenders and effectively anyone who remembers their name is beyond me. 

Facebook never did have much concern for member privacy, but under pressure it introduced new features to allow the member to decide how public or private certain aspects of their online identity were, and as worry spread over privacy issues due to the media highlighting it, one saw a more cautious approach to publishing one's entire lifestyle to the world. At the same time, many still felt that it was not a major problem until the inevitable happened: some bright spark realized that social media were the ideal marketing tool for business.  

The effect of this was not felt immediately, as the business world struggled to use social media productively, while trying to find anyone over 35 who had any idea how to use it at all. Eventually they managed to catch up somewhat, at which point the effect of the business world joining Facebook became significantly more noticeable if not downright pervasive. Once people started getting fired from their jobs for compromising photos, or comments such as "I hate my f***ing boss!" on their profiles, people began to realize that the party was over.

When courts began to reinforce the new status quo by upholding various cases of unjust dismissal, the message was hammered home more clearly: it does matter what you post on your "personal" Facebook page, and even if you go totally private, employers still want to see it. Yes, they have absolutely no legal right to see it, but do you want the job or not?! When it comes to jobs, employers are always in the driving seat and you telling them that they have no legal basis for demanding to see your Facebook page just helps them move on to a candidate with a lovely pastel-colored flower-filled timeline profile, and it's all over. 

With the introduction of Twitter (by default, an intentionally public gossip service) and LinkedIn (specifically for job seekers/employers), social media as quality control analysis of the individual expanded in scope. It became totally the norm for employers to not only go digging surreptitiously (initially) into your online profiles, but later on, employers began to actually ask for your online profile addresses and usernames as part and parcel of the interview process. 

Saying no is not an option, which is frankly, outrageous, and while they claim that if you are not willing to share then you must have something to hide, I say that it is none of your goddamn (for want of a better word!) business - period. The other side of that coin is those who freely use their association (rarely is the key word alignment) with the brand, but then conduct themselves questionably online, and don't see the disconnect. It's cool to say that they are a tech geek at Apple, or a director at Facebook, or a programmer at Google, so they put it in, but follow with a disclaimer. 

That disclaimer covers all sorts of sins, right? They feel free to dive in and often use expletive-filled comments and replies to friends, and make strange sociopolitical commentaries on the side. It's a case of wanting to have it all. They want their famous employer's brand on their profile to up their status in life, but then want to make it clear that their voice has got nothing to do with that employer: so what does that mean? It means that they should have nothing to do with each other, outside the office, that's what it's saying! Hell, it might even be saying very clearly that they simply fake it at work, and in fact do not fit with their employer's brand, at all. 

But the very fact that they associate themselves with the brand means that the profile is not exclusively theirs, and will be up for scrutiny. A disclaimer changes nothing. Do you think that an employer would not change their opinion of that charming blond girl from the design team, upon seeing that she has tons of hidden tattoos and has a wild Twitter profile full of radical politics and language that is more commonly heard on a construction site? Of course they would look at her differently, and human resources would be alerted to it. 

As always, employers have the upper hand, especially if you want (to keep) that job. The Catch 22 of making your online life private to all but close friends/family (which is the totally normal thing to do) is that it raises a red flag in the human resources department. "What are you trying to hide?" The other Catch 22 is that if you do perform a quick spring cleaning and get rid of those drunken college trip pics, and the one with the football team eating sushi off your almost-naked body, then you have joined the club. Once you go public, with an employer, then you are public - period. Squeaky clean is the new norm.

This might not be such a serious issue for someone who lives a fairly quiet life and generally has nothing to hide, although someone in your circle could still post something wild onto your profile which your employer may get to see before you do, if you are busy. Or, if you are prone to compete in wet T-shirt contests in your local Hawaiian bar on Friday nights, then it's not enough to make sure that you don't post any pics of it online. Why? Well, because someone else might. There's always some sneak who loves to catch people in compromising positions on their cell phone camera, with no one aware of the recording of it. Just ask Michael Phelps or Robin Thicke (among many others), for example!

So where do we stand today? In many ways, it has returned us to where we were before: where our private lives were private, and our public face (which now includes our online identity) at work and outside was public. In other words, social media have become so pervasive and even career-threatening that for many they now represent only the public face of  our real lives. The public face and the reality are now formally separated once more. 

This is highly ironic in that many used to use social media to show off their private lives in public, but they now are forced to massage and sanitize that life, to make it suitable for public viewing. All because employers became sneaks and demanded to see a Facebook profile as if it was their right: it is not. But guess what? Telling a potential employer that you don't have a Facebook profile because you think it is worthless, as a way of avoiding the invasion of privacy, will only get you classified as "old" or "a potential sociopath" and you still won't get the job!

So now Facebook becomes a place to present some kind of fake sterilized version of ourselves, doing our best to strip away any individualistic traits, so that we appear to be the standard issue well-balanced production line humanoid model that employers theoretically believe in. Even though, if they believe that candidate employees have any higher form of intelligence whatsoever, then they know that they are looking at a clean cloned profile, or a purposely bland standard (i.e. mind-numbingly boring) identity - right?!

Whither the individual? Whither one's right to stand out, fiercely and proudly, and be as exuberant as one wants to be and is, on a social media website? It has got nothing to do with the workplace, and as long as one is doing a great job in the office, and does not go out of one's way to put down the boss/company online, it has nothing to do with the office. It has almost come to the point of people needing one fake public face, for employers, and also a real but private online identity with a different name or nickname, that only one's true blues are aware of! Once you know that your employer is watching you on Facebook, it is no longer either private or free: you pay a price on a weekly basis for being there, whether you realize it or not, and whether you like it or not. 

There is way too much sharing in this brave new world of social media. Those that hide or are mysterious have become outsiders, and are peered at suspiciously by the rest of the herd. But let me ask you something - when you were in a class at college, or in an office at work, who was/is more intriguing and interesting - the guy/girl who insists on telling you their entire life story over a thirty minute lunch, or the one who is friendly but a little more mysterious and aloof, and who only shares themselves in detail with a select few? There is value in dignity and privacy!

To each their own, but being one of the sheep is such an undesirable state of affairs that it is simply a quite tragic proposition, I'm afraid. We need to celebrate the individual, and individuality; it's a characteristic that is admirable and one that does not need to live in eternal self-promotion and does have a total right to privacy. The individual can be experienced in real time and as a living person, only, because he/she is much too busy and way too happy living life to spend even an evening trying to present some scrapbook version of that life on some social media website! 

The right to privacy has been a major issue just this past week (and is what prompted today's topic) what with Apple being ordered by a magistrate to help the FBI penetrate the phone of certain individuals, and additionally the FBI effectively ordering Apple to produce a new software tool to get around encryption that was put in place to protect the data belonging to an individual in the first place! Apple changed their encryption software in 2014, after the Edward Snowden affair caused outrage over how much information the government was accessing from individual private lives. 

This is a very touchy subject and is bringing to the surface a not-so-well-kept secret that companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Google and Facebook have been the source of a huge amount of data-gathering by Uncle Sam since 9/11. Both the Bush and Obama regimes have benefited from special relationships with these companies, via the clandestine PRISM program, and I daresay that in return, a blind eye was drawn to their stockpiling sufficient billions of dollars offshore that the taxes themselves would run into the billions!

That convenient marriage appears to be reaching its end, not least with Obama himself referring to such tax-avoidance activities as actually "Un-American". So the love affair is over, with Big Brother trying to bite the hand that fed it (data and information) for over a decade, while Silicon Valley in turn rebels against that Big Brother. Google, Facebook and Twitter have all come out in support of Apple and their refusal to facilitate a backdoor for the benefit of the FBI.

This story is going to be fascinating to watch evolve, not least because in one way or another it impacts each and every one of us. But, in the meantime, on this cosy, snowy Saturday morning it is time for this boy to grab a mug of my new Djibouti Darkest Delight roast and catch up on the world using my backdoor-closed doubly-encrypted Samsung Galaxy Tab S2!