Un/Happy Slapping: A call for communications decency

Are you familiar with America's Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act? If you're not here's a précis; it expressly protects the web-based platforms from any defamation of liability that may be related to any data/updates/social information etc. that are posted to their sites. So if you, or someone else, uploads something to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube etc. it is NOT the provider's issues. But yours.

Yes, primarily a United States led legal ramification, but with significant consequences for all...

Think of it. We all (I am sure) have experienced a potentially awkward situation. Traditionally we have been relatively free to live down these mortification's in the now of the moment and within a specific context - whether workplace, pub, street, supermarket etc. BUT with the advent of the constant streams of publicly broadcast social information we may (inadvertently) share our moments (whatever we are doing) with everyone.

This does not just relate to potentially embarrassing episodic moments, but also to mundane activities, professional events, and so on and so forth. My point is that with the nowness of innovative technology (e.g. instant video uploads to YouTube) the (to)day has come when we have to be prepared to be socially aware at all times. Whether welcomed or not. And this is not just on a personal level, but shared across the globe simultaneously with unknown as well as known others. Who may, or may not, be your friends.

Rather than have debate on whether such uploads are an infringement into individual privacy, I (like socially mediated others) am mindful that we live in a of-the-moment world of nowness where everyone via the social web can be a potential distributor of content. Ironic when you consider that whatever one uploads you effectively give up all ownership to it. To follow this path of thought, perhaps current legislation needs updating. Certainly current measures offer no remedy for those who find invasions into what they are doing, when, where and with whom as, at best, an intrusion and, at worse, a personal and unacceptable impingement.

Covered in the press by incidence such as Happy Slapping
(described by Wikipedia as 'a fad' in which typically 'young people' choose to assault a victim while recording the assault for instant upload to YouTube or other filesharing sites), in the same week there is a report on Cyber Bullying which describes an increased anxiety caused by negative social situations due to the immediacy of increasingly social technologies.

So, do these situations point to a need for a rethink of individual visibility across various platforms and/or the ways in which we behave and have expectations of others?...

As a footnote, I think the best advice is to remember that whenever 'on' the web you are effectively out and in public - as much as you would be in the street. In one way this makes us 'fair game'. In another it strikes me such social visibility can only ever be unfair.