Oct
9
I Don’t Give A D@rn About My Net Reputation…
October 9, 2009 | 1 Comment
My previous post was written for a Communications class about self-censorship and it got me thinking as I filled out my profile for the Academic Commons. There are so many things that connect to self-published material here. While I would never write anything offense or inappropriate I find that I guard myself on accounts that I know are public to anyone. If the purpose behind social networking websites is to let users express themselves can this truly be achieved??
For example, my Twitter account is something that I’ve connected to both my public profile at the Academic Commons and my ePortfolio profile. I consider myself a political person and have had to reconsider publishing certain things because of who exactly may view the material. (Don’t worry– I’m not creating any Obama hating internet polls that would attract secret service agents, etc…)
As almost everyone at the Academic Commons holds either a Masters or a Doctorate I feel that as recent undergrad I have perhaps used social networking websites in different ways. My Facebook account will not appear on my Academic Commons profile because it is something that I use to communicate with friends not associated with work. I have set my privacy settings within my Facebook account so that only my friends will be able to view posted material. It’s not that I’m worried about posted material(s) being exposed to the CUNY community, but after completing my Senior Capstone on “The Impact of Web 2.0 Tools on Employment” I am much more conscious of my Internet reputation or “Net Rep”.
…Of course with anything that is published you always have to consider your audience. When the audience is anyone with Internet access it really opens up your viewership/readership.
“It takes many good deeds to build a good reputation, and only one bad one to lose it”
–Benjamin Franklin
Comments
1 Comment so far
Great points, Sarah. I have a draft post on the News blog that touches upon a similar topic. It’s important to remember that although the Commons offers various gradations of public, private, and hidden space, it is open by default and open by design. That does mean that it’s important to conceive of one’s utterances (be they tweets, blog posts, blog comments, or wiki edits) as public utterances, unless they are taking place in a private or hidden discussion forum. Your post is a great reminder of that.