Privacy Means the Right to be Imperfect
This is from a fantastic essay by Geert Lovink - a theorist of new media. I've been reading a collection of his writings on the Internet (published in Russian as "The Critical Theory of the Internet"). It is a goldmine of relevant and thought-provoking ideas.
The one that I've been thinking about the most comes from the following passage:
Dutch critic of technology Tijmen Schep created a website to further investigate the term "social cooling" which is used to describe long-term effects of living in the reputation economy. "Cooling" means the fact that one changes their behavior when being observed. «People start to realize that "digital reputation" can limit their possibilities». This leads to a conformist culture, going away from risks and social rigidity. Opposition to this logic means finding ways to get rid of existing data-gathering algorithms and to criminalize the collection of private information... For Schep privacy means the right to be imperfect.
I think this is a great critique of how social media makes us afraid of being truly ourselves. Than there's a great nod to Foucault's panopticon society. But it's not just corporate data-gathering - it's the users themselves who restrict any form of originality. Fall out of the general norm and you immediately become cringe - the worst thing you can be.
And so I think that the indie-web has a potential to be an alternative to the aforementioned logic of social media panopticon. When every page is personal and there is no central algorithm curating what is the normal behavior, people can experiment more, be more creative, be imperfect.