Nancy Reading wrote:I think the map was made 'read only' because there were a few issues with the access. It is fun to see where people are though. I wonder whether it would be possible for programmers to generate an anonymous map of permies members.
It would absolutely be possible to write a script that pulls the location element under each user's bio and maps it. It would be easy. I don't think we should do it. I think some people would find that distasteful.
There is an under-recognised element to sharing information that people will share more or less in accordance with how difficult it is to access the information publicly. People will post their life story on social media to strangers if it's not searchable later. People are fine being put in a phonebook but would be uncomfortable wearing their address on a tshirt. Putting your house purchase paperwork on file in a dark basement at city hall is ok, but every mail marketing company under the sun mining that information is not ok.
I'm ok posting here, but if someone were to make a searchable archive of everything I've posted across all social media over time I would be deeply uncomfortable. There's a lot you can see in the aggregate of a person's online life that you can't see in individual postings. It's public, but it should not be easy to search.
One of the best modern examples is surveillance cameras like Flock cameras, which log all the cars and people who pass in their vision. One image of you in one place is something many people are ok with, like video surveillance in a mall. But a composite of cameras watching everywhere you've been for years is entirely different and confers a much greater level of control over you.
"Public" is kind of a legal fiction in that way. There is no "yes" or "no" answer if something is public, pragmatically. The same way that what you say and do around a campfire in the woods is different from what you say and do being interviewed on CNN, even though both are "public". Information is shared under the expectation that it doesn't become radically easier to search, and thus there is an entire rainbow of classifications that people use to determine if they are ok sharing.
...and they often feel angry and vulnerable if someone goes and makes stuff that was previously difficult to find, easy to find.
