The permanent record

In 1987 I was a first-year student studying journalism at Rhodes in an apartheid South Africa. On my first day of classes we learned the same thing as j-school students everywhere; get the facts down - who, what, where, when, why. On my first night out with a few fourth-years we learned something different; be careful what you write about as left-leaning students - there are government plants in every tutorial session waiting to watch-list budding journalists (scary music here).  Once you're on that list, you don't come off. I'm sure it wasn't as bad as that in reality, but anything was believable in an environment where our campus hall played host to illegal underground ANC gatherings, and I would frequently participate - understanding the spirit if not the words. We were lambasted by our profs if we attended class instead of joining whatever political protest was on campus that day. My sisters studying at Wits University were tear-gassed at their political protests on campus. Nothing seemed too far-fetched that year.

Nine years later at my first PR agency job, my manager - Carolyn Luke - told me never to write anything that I wouldn't want the whole world to see. She learned that lesson in grade school passing a note that the teacher made her read aloud to the class. A few years later, a Toronto Star tech reporter told me about an email written about him by a PR agency consultant.  The consultant sent the email to another consultant in her agency, but put the journalist's name in the CC line instead of the subject line, so he got to read their opinion of him. Oops.  

Since then I've burned myself a few times by writing things that I didn't intend for others to see. And I've seen emails about myself that I shouldn't have.

The notion of the Permanent Record - a hot topic with blogs - is making me cautious about what I write in any space.  I'm also deeply aware that my opinions on politics, the environment, social issues and religion have gone through radical changes about every five years. And I look back at things on which I was deeply passionate and how foolish I feel for those opinions now. That doesn't mean I won't keep giving my opinion, but I do feel the weight of self-censorship.

Nineteen years after my first day at Rhodes, the permanent record is absolute. Privacy is dying. The Internet caches things forever.  My brain is permanently on caution when I have conversations as I wonder if they'll appear on a blog the next day.  Last Friday I was at Tamera Kramer's party where a couple of the guests were bloggers, and I found myself mentally going through my conversations just as I would an email or blog post before I hit send.

Someone is watching and waiting to tell the world about your foibles. Michael Richards (Kramer) will never live down his unforgiveable racist rant.  Fifteen years ago he might have been sued, but it's unlikely his career would have been ruined as it is today because the whole world gets to sit in judgement as first hand witnessess. Bank of America's singing manager was really not such a bad thing, but it becomes a big deal when we're all allowed to judge.

Today I'm thinking a lot about ethics around blog posting. In the past week, two people told  me they received private emails in response to a blog post, and both wanted to post those private emails publicly. Bloggers are also publicly posting information on who has visited their site. Personal conversations are showing up online. We're going to - eventually - start seeing more self-censorship. Blogs are sort of like tattoos. People will start thinking twice before permanently inking something that might not be representative 2, 5 or 10 years from now.

Published 11 December 2006 12:06 by Lisa Walker

Comments

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  Tamera Kremer said:

  Good points Lisa and a lot of food for thought. I self-censor all the time online. I used to blog about politics under a pseudonym and have learned lessons about "the permanent record".
  
  I was having lunch recently with a blogger who's been in the space for years and we talked about "what's out there about us"... in the end though, it's all the story of your life. And if people will judge you poorly because of something you did or said years ago, well then, you probably don't want to work with them anyway (I know, easier said then done).
  
  But... how many times did I start a sentence on Friday night with "this is off the record" :)
  
  In terms of posting private emails online in response to a post - I'm of mixed minds about it. On the one hand, if the email comes from the subject of your blog post and they choose not to engage you online, that reads false to me in our social media world. But then again, there are limits to how much you should share without a persons permission. It's a grey area that has been tried to be addressed with the "bloggers ethics", etc. but I think they still have a lot of evolving to do.
  
  ps - it's Kremer :)
  December 11, 2006 17:56
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  Tamera Kremer said:

  One thing I forgot to mention in regards to the self-censorship, or starting a sentence with "off the record", is that the people at the party who don't blog didn't get our reservations. ;)
  
  We live in interesting times.
  December 11, 2006 18:11
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  Colin McKay said:

  In an alternate future, society may evolove to a point where information consumers recognize that all humans evolve as thinkers and communicators - and that our paper and electronic record is a timeline of this evolution.
  
  The mis-steps of our youth (or not-so-youth) could be seen as just stages in our intellectual and emotional growth.
  
  People like Richards would still be identified for their tirades, but some leeway would be afforded to the less outrageous.
  
  But that would require people to recognize that not every statement or utterance is meant to be absolute.
  
  But where would that leave the slow-witted observer, the quick-to-judgement crowd, or the irrationally doctrinaire blogger?
  
  Lacking in googlejuice, that's one place it would leave them.
  December 12, 2006 18:24