As the Internet, social media, and mobile media grow more ubiquitous privacy has slowly been dying. We share more, like more, and connect more all the while making it increasingly easy for the outside world to know our whole background.
Last week a tragic accident made headlines in our area and the details of it are really unimportant. The basics are that a young graduate student was involved in a DUI killing one individual. The graduate student was arrested, will be tried for this crime, and will likely spend some significant time behind bars for it. I completely agree that this was a very serious crime that should prosecuted to the fullest extent possible. What I don't agree with is how amateur sleuths pepper the comment threads of articles on this accident with the 'public' details of this student. Granted these details are readily available to anyone who searches, but they are irrelevant. In the first article I read about this accident the comments thread revealed his undergraduate school, summer internships, and previous work experience. I can only expect how quickly his friends, former coworkers, former classmates, or current classmates received correspondence regarding this situation. Regardless of what someone does I don't think they deserve to have their lives turned inside out for the public to pass judgement on. I think the relevant aspects of someone life can be made public, but that decision should be made by the legal system or journalists that theoretically subscribe to some sort of code of ethics. At the same time though the full blame does not fall on the public for sniffing this information out, because it was made public in the name of networking by the individual. In the end it's easy to create a very public profile to help one's career, but what happens after one mistake?
