> As a human being you are entitled to personal time.
I wonder about this in 2021. Social media and ubiquitous recording has changed what seems like an obvious truth into something more complex. A company employee badmouthing customers? A police officer who posts something racist? Attending a political demonstration? An employee who's working on a competing product in their spare time?
I don't have answers to these, but somewhere, the line became blurry.
Yeah, I think it's mainly internet, specifically because:
* the things that you posted during your free time remain visible also during your work time;
* websites optimize for engagement and ad views, so if you happen to write something controversial, they will try to show it to as many people as possible;
* many websites require you to use your real name, making things easier to connect to your real-life identity and employers (also to match across websites);
* the "social networks" encourage you to discuss various unrelated topics on the same website under the same account, again making it easier to connect things together.
Compare it with our social life before internet:
* if you say something in a pub, your boss is not there;
* most of the things you say, people will quickly forget;
* if someone quotes you, you can deny it;
* a social norm against snitching (if someone reports on what you said among your friends to your boss, most likely the friends will shun that person).
Seems to me that most of these bad things are driven by advertising -- the same rules that make it easier for advertisers to connect all dots about your life, also make it easy for your boss, and for someone who wants to report on you to your boss. Also, seems to me that Google and Facebook are the major forces behind this trend -- most other websites either don't feel entitled to know and display my real name, or they are easy to ignore.
I wonder about this in 2021. Social media and ubiquitous recording has changed what seems like an obvious truth into something more complex. A company employee badmouthing customers? A police officer who posts something racist? Attending a political demonstration? An employee who's working on a competing product in their spare time?
I don't have answers to these, but somewhere, the line became blurry.