The Privacy Invaders

Wikipedia defines privacy as:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy

Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively. The boundaries and content of what is considered private differ among cultures and individuals, but share basic common themes. Privacy is sometimes related to anonymity, the wish to remain unnoticed or unidentified in the public realm. When something is private to a person, it usually means there is something within them that is considered inherently special or personally sensitive. The degree to which private information is exposed therefore depends on how the public will receive this information, which differs between places and over time. Privacy can be seen as an aspect of security — one in which trade-offs between the interests of one group and another can become particularly clear.

The concept of privacy is most often associated with Western culture, English and North American in particular. According to some researchers, the concept of privacy sets Anglo-American culture apart even from other Western European cultures such as French or Italian.^[1] The concept is not universal and remained virtually unknown in some cultures until recent times. A word "privacy" is usually regarded as untranslatable^[2] by linguists. Many languages lack a specific word for "privacy". Such languages either use a complex description to translate the term (such as Russian "Неприкосновенность частной жизни") or borrow English "privacy" (as Indonesian "Privasi" or Italian "la privacy")^[2].

Blog is a place where people share stories. It could be their own stories, this is when blog is our own online journal. Or, it could be other's people stories. We tell other people stories in our blog. Some do it by hiding the subject's real identities, creating imaginary or symbolic names, some just totally reveal their identities, probably accompany by all those swearing and nasty words. This is when our blog is our own personal trash can. You can throw anything in it, and you can even throw it to your most hated person.

We tell other people's stories for different reasons. The noblest one is probably to share the lesson learnt from their experiences. The shallowest one of course, when you do it for your own personal revenge plan. While there others who make their real life (including people surround them) into one big smashing hits novel :), which then, someone is making a movie out of it. Raditya the "kambing jantan" and andrea hirata with his tetralogy are only the samples. Despite the funny and touchy parts of their stories, have you ever wonder about Raditya's girlfriend (they broke up now) or A Ling's --andrea's first love crush-- or Andrea's girlfriend (forgot the name of the girl)? I mean, do you really want your ex-boyfriend telling stories about you two together, both in a novel and movie (and let's also count the infotainment too)?

We call it "privacy" because for some reasons, we would like keep it from the public realm. I always have questions and dilemmas whether I should bring other's people stories or not in this blog, in order to respect their privacy. Even, if they did some shittiest thing upon me. I did bring up those two bitches (should have brought up the third and the bitchiest :P) and then, erased them for good. At first, I didn't want to bring them up, until Tita asked me too, since they are the most important thing ever happened, hehe. But then again, I decided to erase them.

And I did make some stories, true stories, which involve other people's, but I tagged them. I think it is the question of ethical that you should let them know that you're writing about them.

Have I ever been brought up to other people's blog? Yes, couple times. A friend told me that she wrote my experience but of course, she made fake names to hide my identity. There is one article which I didn't know I was part of it. And to be honest, I found the subject to be "sensitive". Something that I don't even want to talk about.

I wanted to tell that person to delete it, but I guess that person has the rights to tell it. And that person seems a kind of person that tells other people's stories in blogs anyway. For whatever reasons, just assumes that person uploaded it for a good reason :) Thank God, that person spared my name. It's funny, though.. to see other people's perspectives about yourself. Probably, I'd write about that subject. It is now a public material anyway.

Privacy invaders? Well, I am a privacy invaders. People who can read beyond what a normal eyes see, are automatically privacy invaders. But that is totally different issues hehe..