Anymore, we’re all citizen journalists. Many of us blog to multiple sources, we twitter, we update Facebook statuses. We comment and share via Friendfeed and Pownce and the myriad of social networks to which we belong.
Everything we’re publishing is news to us or someone, no matter how trivial it might seem to someone else.
So I found this BBC article interesting:
Almost 80% of social networking site users would be more careful about the details they put online if they knew the media
might use them, a poll says.The Press Complaints Commission said 89% of the 1,000 people polled wanted guidelines on what the media could use.
And 42% of 16 to 24-year-old who used such websites said they knew someone who had been embarrassed by material which was posted without consent.
Granted, the article is focusing on UK users. But the concept intrigues me. With all the information we’re publishing about ourselves online, whether behind a “walled garden” or available forever on Twitter, how do we control what get published about ourselves by others? Or more relevant to this article, by members of the actual press?
Should social media sites be regulated? Personally, I say no. We all have a responsibility to control our own reputation online. I monitor mine by using Google Alerts. I make sure that photos I don’t want used on other web sites are not under a Creative Commons license on Flickr. But I’m hyper-aware of these things. The average user is not. As a journalist (I write for a legitimate food/wine publication), I will always ask permission before using random quotes or things I’ve found on-line. But that’s me. Do all journalists do that?
So, how much personal responsibility do we have and how much information should be regulated, as Britain’s PCC is considering. Thoughts?
Cheers!
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Events, news, apps, and more – let me know at michelle[at]writetech[dot]net, via Twitter, or via Pownce.
Img source: Dep’t of Education Poster circa 1963,
via Creative Commons, from Flickr User jestaub.