Seminar for the Master on Social Media and Web Technologies, Linnaeus University, Sweden, 4 October 2012

1. Nelson Zagalo, University of Minho, Portugal
ONLINE PRIVACY & OWNERSH
Seminar for the Master on Social Media and Web Technologies,
Linnaeus University, Sweden, 4 October 2012

2. Contents
• Evolution of privacy
• Communication Technologies
• Differences and challenges
• Digital Ownership
• Ethics of Digital Copies

3. Social
 Interaction between persons
 Create an idea of collective existence
 Happens voluntary or involuntary
 Is in the gregarious mammals nature
 And is evolutionary defined

4. Evolution of social and privacy in the last
centuries
More privacy, less Social.

5. Privacy
 Separation from social
 Reveal ourselves selectively
 For protection and security
 Is culturally defined
 More privacy, less social

6. Problem: The gregarious mammals nature.
We are emotionally designed to be social.

7. Solution: Communication technologies
tend to recreate the social, regaining
privacy space.

8. Switched “Facebook Killed the Private Life”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azIW1xjSTCo

9. To recreate social space, is not enough to have communication one-to-all.
We need to participate and share, to create an all-to-all communication.
We need to loose some privacy.

10. Happiness tend to spread through close relationships like friends,
siblings, spouses, and next-door neighbors. Happiness spread more
consistently than unhappiness through human networks. (Fowler,
2008)
We are returning back to old social models with lesser privacy. Is this

11. Differences and
Challenges

12. Physical, not written, intuitive. Virtual, written, deliberate.
Privacy comprehension.

13. Privacy perception.

14. Privacy registry.

15. Once online, no undo, no erasure, neither forgetting is available.

16. “It is almost impossible for the [Facebook] user to really know what
happens to his or her personal data when using facebook. For example
“removed” content is not really deleted by facebook and it is often unclear
what facebook exactly does with our data.”
http://europe-v-facebook.org/

17. Immediate actions
- Everyone will read online information about us, so we should treat it,
with the same care we treat our appearance in public.
- We must fight for the protection of data we enter into any company
website, and prohibit them to use it without our specific consent for each
action.
In the longer term
- We must battle for the creation of tools that can erase unwanted
information about us online.

18. Digital
Ownership

19. Digitization made possible copies of the same quality.

20. In the past you couldn’t copy films, music or books at home recreating an
exact same copy. You could have copies but with inferior quality. Thus you
would buy it to own the pristine quality of an “original.

21. Digital breached final frontier of reproduction. My copy of a Beatles
album isn’t any different of yours, and doesn’t cost a dime to create.

22. Digitization together with the internet interconnections between
authors, distributors and buyers made possible the dematerialization.

23. In the past you could borrow your discs, exchange them, sell them on
second hand or leave it as inheritance to your children.
However in the digital world, every copy is assigned to only one individual.
He can’t resell it, he can’t give it away, he can’t leave it to his children.
Then why pay for something you have less rights, and that you can have
through a copy that harm no one?

24. Ethics of digital
copies

25. Do we talk about the artwork, or the support for the artwork?
We don’t own the artwork, we never did, only the support.
We buy only the right to see, hear, and read it, nothing else.

26. Do we own the theme park, do we own the disco club, do we own the art
installation?
But Experiences belong only to us.

27. Artworks are created to express ideas, to externalize author emotions
and touch receptor’s feelings. Artworks are objects of mediation, delivering
experiences. The goal is not to create a thing that can be owned, but that
can be felt.

28. Experiences, as artworks, are not materially defined. They define moments in our
lives. They create memories in us, idea associations, and this is what build our
identities.
Experiences are always social. Be among friends, be between a writer and a
reader.

29. Then the question, shouldn’t be why should I pay for a copy of the same quality?
The question shouldn’t be why are these albums, films or games so expensive?
The question should be only, do I want to experience more artworks like these,
thus I’ll support this author to help him creating new works.

30. “Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs
we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need.”
Fight Club (1996) Chuck Palahniuk

31. James H Fowler, Nicholas A Christakis, (2008), Dynamic spread of
happiness in a large social network: longitudinal analysis over 20 years
in the Framingham Heart Study, BMJ 2008; 337 doi: 10.1136/bmj.a2338
(Published 4 December 2008)
Whybrow, Peter (1999), Interview, in Why Dogs Smile & Chimpanzees
Cry (1999), Directed by Carol L. Fleisher; Writing credits: Paula Deats,
Carol L. Fleisher
Sheldon, K. M., & Lyubomirsky, S. (2004). Achieving sustainable new
happiness: Prospects, practices, and prescriptions. In A. Linley & S.
Joseph (Eds.), Positive psychology in practice, (pp. 127-145)
Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and Loss Vol. 3. Loss: Sadness and
depression. New York, Basic.

32. Universidade do Minho
Nelson Zagalo, nzagalo@ics.uminho.pt
Homepage. http://nelsonzagalo.googlepages.com
Facebook. http://www.facebook.com/nelsonzagalo
Blog PT: http://virtual-illusion.blogspot.pt