Haunted by that Random Upload
Information Technology (IT) – some days you love it and some days you hate it. The brilliant advances that have taken place in the last 10 years due to advances in IT are unfortunately tempered somewhat by the problems that have also been introduced. We now have the unprecedented ability to reach an audience with newsworthy or not so newsworthy information on a grand scale.
Currently, when one of our politicians or individuals of mass interest / celebrities do anything more than an ordinary sneeze you can almost bet that someone has captured it on camera and within moments has uploaded it to YouTube for all the world to watch – repeatedly. How fair is this? No doubt is gets very out of hand for the individuals involved however, if that is their chosen career path then they should know full well what they are getting themselves in for, yet I pity them just the same.
What is more unfortunate is when ordinary individuals become the victims of a thoughtless moment which previously would have been scoffed at there and then and subsequently long forgotten, but with the help of technology is captured in high resolution colour and published on the Internet to haunt them forever. Welcome to camera phones, Facebook, twitter, YouTube and the likes.
I often laugh when a new acquaintance brands me as “an IT geek” when in actual fact I don’t have or belong to any of these what I call ‘online behemoths’ of personal invasion. Publishing half of your life online works OK for some but is not my cup of tea. People need to be wary of the implications of these actions.
We recently had a case where an individual in a relationship was worried about photos and other content that their previous partner had which involved them. In these cases the police have no jurisdiction if the material was not collected under duress and as such as powerless to help. Years ago patents and copyrights were created to protect intellectual content and creativity but very little is around now-a-days to protect content that is of a private nature.
Today’s youth especially need to be wary of their actions at parties and even in private where camera phones are often used to capture the ‘events’ of the night. Parents also need to look at what content is being served up to their children via Facebook accounts and other online means. Bullying previously existed when the biggest or toughest kid in the playground pushed the others around and made them feel bad. Now cyber bullying can target a child/person back in the so called ‘safety’ of their own bedroom from a faceless or even nameless source on the Internet.
Future Byte Me topics can be emailed to [email protected] and Bruce is contactable at Kerr Solutions, 205 Musgrave Street or on 49 222 400.
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