Watching out for our own WikiLeaks

The leaking of diplomatic cables by the organization WikiLeaks in late November has caused an international uproar. Whether it’s the revelation that Berlusconi and Putin have an extraordinarily close relationship or that the Chinese think North Korea is behaving like a “spoiled child,” sensitive private information has been made public. Earlier in the year, WikiLeaks leaked 92,000 documents relating to the war in Afghanistan and 400,000 documents relating to the Iraq war.

Aside from these larger leaks, WikiLeaks has published millions of other documents. From the contents of Sarah Palin’s private email account to secret rituals of several national sororities, the public exposure of private information raises an important question: In an age of instantaneous information, when content can go viral in a matter of seconds, where does privacy fit in?

I remember the day I joined Facebook. It was the fall of my sophomore year of high school and I was slightly ahead of the curve—only several students in my grade had already joined. Apparently, it was going to be the next big thing, yet the idea made me nervous. I wasn’t overly excited about having a profile for all to see, and I felt strange about being represented by a brief description of my interests and favorite movies and music. People would actually spend time looking at pictures of me? How bizarre. I felt exposed, like I was truly putting myself out there to be looked at and judged. This uncomfortable feeling of exposure has almost completely disappeared from my consciousness when using the Internet today, as I, like many others, do not always consider the implications of having my private life on public display.

Like applying to a job or school, using the Internet forces us to construct an identity. On many occasions, friends have described finally meeting someone they had only “known” through Facebook. Recognizing differences between an individual’s two “personalities” forces us to realize that an Internet persona is not who someone is in reality. A friend recently expressed her frustration about all of her tagged pictures on Facebook being taken while out at night. Her concern is that a person judging her based on her online profile would get the wrong idea and would be unaware of all the other aspects of her life. How often do people bring their cameras to the library and take pictures of themselves studying, even if that is where they spend the majority of their time?

We perceive people based on their online personalities, and we are surprised when they are different in person. From the painfully shy individual who uses Facebook to constantly post information to her profile, to the predator who builds an online persona as a 10-year-old girl, the Internet enables us to share who we are, or who we want to be. It’s like going into Grand Central Station and screaming, “This is who I am!”

According to a study from the University of California, San Diego, the average American takes in 34 gigabytes of information per day outside of the workplace, and approximately 100,500 words from different types of media. This is three-and-a-half times more information than we were digesting 30 years ago. The constant influx of media and the push to share information blurs the line between what is public and what is private. As the concerned adults in our lives tell us, nothing we put on the Internet is actually private and we must exercise caution when using social media. This is somewhat confusing for our generation. When we send a friend a private message on Facebook, is that OK because it’s hidden from the public—meaning the Facebook world? What feels private to us is actually more public than we could imagine. When we post something online, it is permanent and there can be legal, professional, and personal consequences. Just look at people legally prosecuted for cyber bullying or the recent warning we received to avoid posting links to WikiLeaks. Putting information on the Internet is what we know and what we are completely accustomed to doing.

The definitions of public and private have changed dramatically in recent years. Only time will tell what the implications are for our generation, but in the meantime, what are we to do? Are we forced to choose between abstaining from using the Internet for personal use or living our lives as an open book? As the first generation to grow up in this public world, it is up to us to find a balance between these two extremes.

Alexandra Katz is a Barnard College senior majoring in political science. Umm, Excuse me runs alternate Tuesdays.