There was some interesting discussion here at LP recently on this thread about the right to free speech, which I think took far too narrowly American and thus falsely universal a view. In the common law tradition of Britain and Australia and comparable countries, there hasn’t historically been a legal right to free speech (except in Parliament!). Though that’s changed to some degree here, and in Britain because of the importation of civil law jurisprudence via the European Union, it has always been the case that protection from intrusion and protection of reputation have been significant barriers to press “freedom”. Defamation law, however, is a blunt instrument when it comes to protecting privacy, and the Australian Law Reform Commission has released a report suggesting higher barriers for media intrusion into people’s private lives. The report can be found here and the salient recommendations are covered in this story.
The Right to Know Coalition - an organisation of Australian media companies - vigorously opposes any new legal protections for privacy.
In an op/ed pushing this barrow in The Australian, UQ’s Garrick Professor of Law James Allan makes the case against, predictably roping in the general conservative suspicion of any measure that might resemble a bill of rights. He concentrates on a recent UK case which turned on a right to privacy, brought by motor racing boss Max Mosley. Mosley’s adventures with sex workers and domination scenarios in a basement were reported by a British tabloid, and the story had all sorts of salacious elements - including the fact that Mosley’s famous father Sir Oswald was a home-grown British Fascist. But the court found that there was no public interest in revealing all this, and indeed it’s hard really to see what that public interest might be. The suggestion from the media crew is that “ordinary people” don’t have to worry about such intrusions into their private lives. But is that so?
One of the arguments often put is that celebs are fair game because they leverage that celebrity and thus their livelihoods off salacious detail and rumours about their private lives. That may be true - in some instances. But then, is the head of a motor racing federation a celebrity? And what happens where - as in the case of the supermarket mags - a lot of the “celebrity gossip” is just made up?
Let’s take a borderline case - Australian swimmer Stephanie Rice, who’s just won an Olympic gold medal. There’s been lots of reporting about Rice’s relationship with fellow Olympic team member Eamon Sullivan. In fact one of the pre-Olympic press conferences had much of the focus on this, rather than the swimming team’s prospects. The justification here - insofar as there is one - is that elite athletes can’t concentrate on their performances if they’re distracted - and apparently a relationship concentrates a distraction. But what’s the bigger distraction? On one hand - there’s a marketing imperative - which the media feeds - whereby athletes have to display celeb like personas in order to bank money from sponsorships and so forth. Performance isn’t enough. But we don’t know - on the other hand - whether Rice herself welcomes discussion of her romantic status. Even accepting this logic, couldn’t the press focus on it be a distraction?
Could it also be the case that the media focus on Rice has a lot to do with “sex sells” and her attractiveness and that’s why she received much more attention in the lead up to the Games than some of her colleagues? Hence the focus on her private life? After all, that’s a very common pattern with female sport.
But there’s a clearer case in the publication of photos Rice had posted on her Facebook page. They were quite unremarkable - a 20 year old playing dress ups at a party. But they led to a media storm, and to censure of Rice by the swimming and Olympic authorities. Say what you will about Facebook’s confusing and ambivalent attitude towards privacy settings, it’s pretty clear that Rice’s right to a private life was being denied here. And it doesn’t take too much thought to recall other examples of information originally published on MySpace or Facebook suddenly being wrenched out of its context and into the public arena - when someone dies, when someone decides to run a beat up story about the oddities of Young Liberals, or in lots of other instances when people suddenly become objects of press induced notoriety.
Then there’s the trash tv tabloid “current affairs” programs.
The media who wear one hat as “defenders of the public interest” actually trade on invasion of privacy - literally - when wearing another hat. If you want an example of the everyday (ir)responsibility of the press - on the topic of the Olympics and the objectification of female competitors’ bodies, consider this Fairfax story discussed by Lauredhel at Hoyden.
Or let’s take pollies and their private lives. Is there really a public interest in who NSW Health Minister Reba Meagher is dating?
So, does “public interest” equate to a prurient interest? Is it sufficient justification to say celeb trash and gossipy or salacious exposures of individuals’ lives sells papers or garners hits? Or is it possible for a reasonable jurisprudence to draw the sorts of lines that Allan apparently thinks can’t be drawn? And is the combination of media reporting and advocacy on this exemplary of what’s wrong with the elision of the (commercial) interests of the press with the public interest?
Bernard Keane in Crikey notes that politicians won’t be happy about the ALRC’s other recommendations to bring political parties within the ambit of privacy legislation. It could well be that a combination of this factor and media self-interest will kill off the proposed amendments. Something similar may well end up taking effect anyway - in a roundabout sort of way through the normal processes of common law jurisprudence. Then we’ll have lots of stories about “unelected judges” to chew on as part of our daily media diet. But make sure you’ve got your privacy settings right on Facebook.
A major part of the problem with this is duplication and repetition of questioning. For example, some ABC journalist might ask Stephanie Rice a question. She answers it. Nothing whatsoever stops a Channel 7 journalist from asking the same question. And so on. As any parent of a three-year-old knows, any question–however stunningly insightful and laudable the first time it is asked–becomes grating, on repetition. Commonly, questions asked by journalists are far from laudable, and if the questioned party shows a strong response to it, the journalist realizes they possess a stick, and will continue to poke.
Anyone thinking that “celebrity news” will never apply to themselves had best stay out of court, too. If you should happen to find yourself a participant in an “interesting” trial, you should prepare to be pestered by dozens of the thugs, shoving cameras in your face, staking out your home and workplace, baying the most ridiculous questions at you.
The public’s right to know must be circumscribed by a requirement to gather that information unobtrusively. If finding out something requires pestering a person, the public hasn’t got a right to know it.
On defamation, I’ve posted the outline from a lecture I gave last semester on the topic:
http://eventmechanics.net.au/?p=1134
However, is a moral panic about privacy really the issue here? Why does the media find it necessary to continually play the over-exposure commentary game? Audience interest in this tosh is of greater concern.
I would need an expert to comment but as I understand it in Italy privacy laws are often used by politicians to suppress coverage of corruption enquiries.
Even if the laws are well defined you open the door for a great deal of SLAPP tactics by the powerful attacking anyone who publishes anything unfavorable about them. You would likely see a lot more of this than people who wanted to draw further publiciity by taking the media to court.
Well, I don’t know anything about Italian law but it seems to me that the recommendations of the Law Reform Commission are fairly narrowly targeted. In any case of proposed law reform like this, there’s enormous weight behind the status quo, and those defending it (ie the media) have a huge self-interest from rapidly flicking the switch from discussing the actual problem that gave rise to the recommendations to conjuring up all sorts of hypothetical horror stories about what might occur. That’s a very effective conjuring trick in terms of distorting the debate.
If there are genuine concerns, build in a requirement that the law be reviewed and time lines.
Privacy laws are already being abused in order to cover up various crimes and malfeasance’s by those in power and their servants. Proposed new laws - so far - look like more of the same. More police and army special pleading in order to cover-up clear abuse.
Whats required seems obvious to me - those in any position of power…and that includes wealthy celebrities all live in virtual ‘ Big Brother’ style houses. ( Sear Brinworld) while those of us who remain humble netizens have our right to privacy and anonymity protected. Chiefly by preserving and extending the free internet.
Ubiquitous surveillance for the wealthy and powerful - our homes remain our castles for the rest of us…the vast majority. Who could argue with that?
I don’t know anything about this woman so correct me if I’m off base here, but she’s a member of the Au swimming team at the Olympics, who’s had many, many thousands of dollars of public money poured into her training, she’s voluntarily showing up at press conferences and being coached and handled by a large team of PR professionals. She’s worked very hard for many years to become famous and is choosing to stick to the same path. How is she a ‘borderline’ celebrity?
I also don’t understand the facebook photo comments. I’ve not seen the photos, but she published them on the internet, yes? I’m not saying there’s no privacy concerns (I’ve not thought enough about it), but she surrendered her ‘right’ to keep the pictures private when she published them.
“The public’s right to know must be circumscribed by a requirement to gather that information unobtrusively. If finding out something requires pestering a person, the public hasn’t got a right to know it.”
d
ooops. Meant to delete that last quote from Ash. :^0
What’s a celebrity in this context, Darryl? Someone who’s judged on the basis of their performance as an elite athlete or someone whose publicity revolves around who she’s going out with and what she chooses to wear when she goes to parties with her friends?
And with FB, surely the issue here is that for a lot of users, FB hardly facilitates their choice of who sees their content.
So are you arguing that any reporting on the relationships or fashion choices at private parties of anyone who’s in the public eye for legitimate reasons having nothing to do with those things is legitimate?
And if you’re interested in the background, I suggest you follow this link to a google of “stephanie rice facebook photos” which will include the images in question - having been pinched by all and sundry and reposted in all sorts of places:
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&channel=s&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&hs=3jR&q=stephanie+rice+facebook+photos&btnG=Search&meta=
Mark I think the issues I’m raising are reasonable aspects for debate, and I should say that I agree in a large part with a lot of what Kim said about the need to protect people’s privacy. While I agree that the media companies have selfish and perverse motives, you might only be handing a present to another set of influential and powerful groups with these laws.
Simply mandating the law should be reviewed doesn’t mean that it will be properly adjusted if some people or groups grow to like it.
Copyright holders certainly do not lose their rights over images (or text) merely by publishing them on the internet.
Sure, technology makes it trivially easy to copy and distribute them. That does not affect copyright one whit - it’s trivially easy to photocopy a book as well. It’s still technically a breach of copyright.
Michael S., I’m not trying to trivialise the concerns you raise, but rather place similar ones in the context of the lobbying by special interests - ie the media - in that they don’t even bother much with the first part of the equation (ie what problems exist) and massively exaggerate possible unintended consequences in the second. But I think it is quite possible to build some rigorous review questions into a piece of legislation. In fact, I think this should be done more often.
And Darryl, further to what tigtog said, that’s why creative commons licences exist - to enable people to allow some use of content posted on the net. Certainly, in the absence of other provisions or licencing, the owner of images reserves their rights. And FB only allows you to post photos if you hold the right to do so, which presumes that they are copyright. There’s a big difference between Stephanie Rice enabling people to look at her FB photos and their dissemination via news sites.
The only way to ensure that Facebook doesn’t invade your privacy is to give it the big swerve. It’s literally amazing what you can find out about ‘ordinary people’. I don’t think most people realize just how vulnerable they are to nastiness in a any given number of scenarios.
.
It’s a good post Kim. It nails a problem that becomes more pressing all the time. Free speech is supposed to act as a safeguard against powerful arseholery however it’s actually being used to expose the private lives of famous persons.
.
Many of these people don’t want it and don’t ask for it. The paparazzi’s cliams to being essential PR for talent was disproved famously when George Clooney told ‘em off and they refused to take his picture. It was about the time that From Dusk ‘Till Dawn came out. As we all no Clooney’s career has gone nowhere since.
.
Some who have no talent to convert into fame use it to become famous for being so. And our culture has become all to used to various people, famous and otherwise, discussing openly in front of billions, things that used to be considere4d strictly private out of consideration for the dignity of oneself and the comfort of others. These days - dignity? What’s that.
.
One the other hand privacy laws will probably be used to curtail and already flailing fourth estate duty to expose corruption and tell the truth. What can you do?
Well, how legitimate is *any* of the reporting we read and hear every day? LP has dedicated umpteen thousand words to how vacuous and baseless political reporting and commentary is, I don’t know why we’d expect sports or glamour reporting to be any different. I don’t particularly like it and I tend to ignore it (hence why I’ve never heard of this woman before today) but that’s the way it is. Stephanie Rice wanted to be famous, she is famous and this is what happens when you get famous.
A better ‘borderline’ example might be the Corby family, or Denis Fergerson, or one of those shonky car dealers you get on the current affairs. They’re people suddenly subjected to enormous media pressure, without the benefit of a large, publically funded media team to support them and manage the media.
As for the facebook photos, she published them, end of story. I think it’s very hard to argue that facebook pages are unpublished personal communication, no matter what your privacy setting are. I don’t take photos of things much but to me, it’s just like printing up a newsletter with pics and handing it out to your friends. You might be embarrassed, hurt and offended that someone gave the newsletter to the media, but you can’t reasonably complain about privacy.
Really, if you want to try and keep something private, the last thing you should do is upload it to the internet!
“So are you arguing that any reporting on the relationships or fashion choices at private parties of anyone who’s in the public eye for legitimate reasons having nothing to do with those things is legitimate?”
Conversely, are you arguing that publishing should be restricted only to those topics that are legitimate? (Like Big Brother ;^) Gossip’s been around for a long time and it’s not going to go away. Culture trumps strategy every time.
d
“Copyright holders certainly do not lose their rights over images (or text) merely by publishing them on the internet.”
No, of course not, and the copyright holder (which may or may not be Stephanie Rice - after all, she’s the subject not the photographer) could take action against the people who made unauthorised copies of the work (including, perhaps, Stephanie Rice, who also caused them to be published).
But that’s got nothing at all to do with privacy, so I didn’t get into it.
“There’s a big difference between Stephanie Rice enabling people to look at her FB photos and their dissemination via news sites.”
I can’t see where the big privacy difference are.
d
I,m a bit of a layman on this but I dont think the Press has any right to poe about in some ones personal and private life,I mean some ones sex life or whether they are screwing the woman next door.
It is none of there bloody business,I know if it was me I would give the reporter a bloody good hiding,Politicians are allowed a private life,whether the press likes it or not,if NEW LTD dont like it to bad.
But the funny thing about all this is NEWs LTD absolute fear of reporting anything about Murdock,bit of a double standard I think
I agree in principle to enshrining some privacy rights in law but it should largely be to protect ordinary folk from gross abuses of privacy. For instance the bereaved family of a murder victim should have some protection from media intrusion. However we are an open society and that is a precious thing. Any privacy protection law would have to be very narrowly construed otherwise clever lawyers and activist judges would broaden the scope of the legislation beyond its original intent. Even then its odds on that lawyers and the judiciary will chew holes threw it.
tigtog @ 11
Facebook’s policy is you retain ownership of your content - but you grant Facebook a very broad licence to do whatever they want with it. That includes public display and sub-licensing so they’re able to pass it on to the media for a fee if they wish.
However, the license expires if you remove your content.
Facebook Terms of Use
That said, they’re only Terms of Use, so I’ve no idea what laws they might be breaching in the process.
Nick, I wonder whether Facebook has actually passed on photos to the media, or have the media just assumed that they can copy them?
Darryl,
I would certainly ring up any friend who did such a thing and complain to them about their breach of ethical behaviour regarding my privacy. My private life and interactions with my friends are not public property. Unless there were wondrously extenuating circumstances I can’t imagine that a friend who did such a thing would remain as a friend.
Living in Sydders and doing a lot of walking with my camera around beaches and the harbour, I see celebrities out and about having coffee with friends and playing with their kids in parks quite often. I wouldn’t dream of invading their privacy with my long lens just because they were out and about where I am able to take a photo.
Just because I am able to see a glimpse of a private moment doesn’t mean that I would be justified in distributing that moment for publication, even if I am legally able to do so I still see valid ethical grounds for a complaint over privacy being breached.
Darryl, what tigtog said.
Dunno, it seems there’s nothing to stop the media approaching Facebook and asking “got any photos of Stephanie Rice?”
Except Facebook hopefully not wanting to earn a reputation for abusing privilege and screwing over their users!
I also wonder how it would work with regard to printed media, where the copies can’t be removed after license expiry. Would it matter as long as they were made while the license was in effect?
What if this person is a massively influential figure in society, the representative of an organized religion and an advocate of making, say, adultery punishable by death?
.
That’s hard news and the public should know it. See the problem?
I wasn’t paying close attention, but the report on the SBS news just now suggested the report specifically addressed the appropriation of content from FB. So anyone interested in that aspect might want to follow up via the link to the report in the post.
I’m leery of legislation against press being nosy per se for exactly the reason you describe, but there needs to be better guidelines than simply either they can or they can’t. Exposing hypocrisy or corruption is rather different from merely nosing about in the hopes of finding something salaciously titillating about someone with a famous face, and the press shouldn’t just shrug off criticism for wrongdoing in one case by pointing to how important it is that they be allowed to do it in another.
I agree with you Tictog but the problem is how do introduce laws that can provide something more nuanced than you can/you can’t? It seems to me that in doing so you are asking parliament and/or the courts to limit the freedom of the press to only worthy things. What’s worthy and who decides.
.
On a case by case basis it’s easy. Kevin Rudd is having an affair with the Chinese ambassador - obviously hard news and in the public interest to know (sorry Kevvie strictly hypothetical old bean).
.
On the other hand Ms Tanbaum and Mr Hartpex, this month’s hottest Home and Away starlet decide to go on a camping holiday and some greasy creep with a telephot lens takes 362 shots of them making love in the forest. Obviously not worthy.
.
But when you write laws trying to conceieve of general categories that will mostly make these kinds of distinctions you get into trouble. And of course there’s the possibility that Kevvie’ll hire some megabrain’d silk to twist ‘em around the way they’re not supposed to go.
.
Is a puzzlement.
In order to avoid the puzzlement, you could read the report, Adrien! The Law Reform Commission knows something about legislative drafting. I don’t get the whole “how could you write the law?” question - you come up with the right lines you want to draw as a matter of public policy, draft it carefully, and let the courts interpret it. Sometimes it may lead to unintended outcomes, but that’s what higher courts, looking at the intention of the legislature, and suggesting amendments by way of review are there for. I just don’t buy the whole “OMG! What if every single contingency can’t be spelled out!” as an excuse for inaction.
Let’s debate the rights and wrongs of the issue and let the lawyers sort out the rest.
Yes true. But it’s long and full of big words Mark.
I also know nothing about Italian law, but I’ve read the relevant parts of the ALRC report and they aren’t.
If you can’t see how the rich and powerful could use legislation based on the recommendations to shut down anyone who discovers something inconvenient about them and has the gall to want to actually tell someone you’ve rocks where your brains ought be.
It’s worth bearing in mind that blogs such as LP would be caught up by the proposed laws. Got your set of privacy principles ready to roll?
“Let’s debate the rights and wrongs of the issue and let the lawyers sort out the rest.”
Lets leave it to the lawyers? You say the scariest things at times, Mark. Someone could right a rather hefty book detailing why that view is reckless and naive.
As Adrien and others have noted, any legislation that aims to protect privacy will undoubtedly be abused by those with the means to hire a team of top-notch lawyers unless it is extremely precise and narrowly worded.
My twelve years experience working as a legislative delegate in the Australian Public Service has left me rather more cynical about legalism than yourself.
The notion that there is a right to privacy that trumps the right to property is looking increasingly threadbare and naive in the age of Facebook, perpetual porn and everyone impatiently grasping for their 15 minutes of fame. Privacy appears to be a live option only when you can afford corporate lawyers savvy enough to draw up watertight commercial-in-confidence contracts.
Its probably true that personal relations b/w individual and individual should remain privy, if only to circumscribe a space for the soul.
But its truer still that the individual should hide nothing of importance from the institutional, since this embodies his obligation to be true to his fellows.
“Privacy is dead, deal with it.”
Sun MicroSystems CEO Scott McNealy 2000
@tigtog(19) & Mark(20)
I agree with just about everything Tigtog wrote at @19, but we’re bumping up against the difference between the lay definition(s) of privacy and the legal definitions, which the ALRC report discusses in Part A.
I’ve only skimmed the top level and read a few details, but there doesn’t seem to be much here that would effect the situation with Stephanie Rice, either the reporting about her boyfriend or the facebook picture business. (But I’ve just skimmed, so please tell me if I’ve missed the good bits. I did do a text search for ‘facebook’ and read those bits :^)
Let me put my own cards on the table - I’m pretty pessimistic about the future of privacy. Privacy is a socially defined concept that’s developed in concert with information technology, including photography. Technology has shaped our idea of privacy and technology is going to break it. I worry that attempts to protect privacy in the digital information age is going to work about as well as other forms of digital rights management and that the proposed solutions are going to leave us worse off and less prepared for the future that’s coming.
I’m quite influenced by David Brin’s book “The Transparent Society” – not wholly won over by it, but it’s dammed hard to poke a hole in his arguments. He’s got a neat analogy with being in a ‘normal’ restaurant v one with paper screens around all the tables. You’re got more privacy when no one can see you, which means you can make serious efforts to eavesdrop without anyone noticing, so you’ve less privacy, thanks to the efforts made to enhance privacy.
Myself, I always post under my real name these days, having written some lamentable things pseudonymously back in the day. ‘Be sure your sins will find you out’, that’s my motto. That and ‘the road the Hell is paved with good intentions’. *sigh* Just as well I identify as an optimist these days. :^)
d
It depends how the laws were framed, Darryl, and the ALRC is proposing something, not making law. What I’m assuming - based on some of the commentary as to how the media might react - is that there’d be more reticence. Laws send signals.
With Mosley/Rice (1)/Rice (2) - I’m really going down the scale and then up again of invasions of privacy. I think in the FB case, what happened was someone tipped off the media about the FB photos and then they were published. I’d like to see less willingness to do this sort of thing.
I’m also trying to get to the bigger issues here around what constitutes the public interest. Does it matter to anyone if Rice goes to a costume party and wears a “sexy” costume? I’m also interested in how the media’s practices impact differently on women.
And I’m still waiting for someone to explain to me why the identity of the NSW Health Minister’s latest boyfriend is a “need for the public to know” thing.
Btw, if you want to see Rice in the said costume, another blogger has just gratuitously used it as an illustration for a post on her gold medal:
http://nebuchadnezzarwoollyd.blogspot.com/2008/08/stephanie-rice-and-south-ossetia-of.html
I illustrated this one with a picture of her in a swim suit which she makes available for media.
Kim
“gratuitous”? You’re wrong, but I’m grateful!
Derek
“But its truer still that the individual should hide nothing of importance from the institutional, since this embodies his obligation to be true to his fellows.”
Shorter Strocchi. Umm.. see above. Really this is beyond parody Jack. Unless yer just taking the piss out of Kim Il Sung. Which I now sadly doubt.
Returning to the original point of the post. I have a simple solution. Legalise dueling.
Gratuitous can have three meanings
1. given, done, bestowed, or obtained without charge or payment; free; voluntary.
2. being without apparent reason, cause, or justification: a gratuitous insult.
3. Law. given without receiving any return value.
I’m assuming you attribute the second meaning of gratuitous to my post, as numbers 1 and 3 are also applicable to the Rice photo that accompanies your post.
My justification is that this photo is now as much a part of the public Rice package as your ‘authorised’ one is, and as well as being part of the reason why her story is compelling to media. It was not intended as a deliberate insult to Stephanie Rice abut rather a deliberate counterpoint to the real point of my piece which was about Ossetia.
Kim, the stories all cited the raunchiness of the photos as the reason they were pulled…that seems to be the official line but I’d take a wild guess the real concern was the alcohol in a few of the shots – alco-pops no less.
On the tail of Nick D’arcy and with Kieran Perkins now revealing there’s a ‘binge culture’ amongst Australian swimmers.
Swimmers are probably pitched to children (and parents) more than any other sportspeople, breakfast cereal, milk, muesli bar ads etc. Not to mention - as I write this I just watched an anti-alcohol ad featuring an Australian swimmer (‘drink in moderation/live life’).
Regarding Reba and Adam, given the photos they chose to run with, I figured the Telegraph was having a go at some very lightweight and tacky Confidential-style political scandalising. Which then quickly becomes fodder for the likes of this site.
sorry, this site
feel free to fix and delete this and last post btw
Nothing on the internet even suspecting it and I’ve decided I’m thinking a company regularly making $10-100 million-plus business deals wouldn’t see the value in it. How much could a set of photos be worth weighed against the scale of negative publicity if the practice was (very quickly) found out? It’d be very different to trading user info behind the scenes. Besides, it’s unlikely a celebrity would ever post anything that sensational on Facebook.
So yeah, I think the media have just assumed they can copy them.
The problem with copyright (as I see it) is you’ve given Facebook an unlimited license and since the content was then sourced from Facebook, it’d only be Facebook who could follow it up in court. And why would they ever do that
The media will always reference ‘Stephanie’s Facebook photos’ etc so it’s endless publicity for them with no downside. Responsibility will always fall back on the user - ‘if you didn’t want your photos to go public, you should have set your account to private’ or ‘if you can’t trust your friends, don’t upload your photos’. Stephanie could now request News Online remove her photos from their gallery of course…but I don’t think she sees any need to. They’re not shocking and she originally made them publicly available anyway. Plus she’s become an international FHM star…when did the Daily Telegraph start calling them ‘lads’ mags’, or are they expecting a lot of international hits during the Olympics?
In relation to the Privacy Act, Facebook’s Terms of Use mean you have ‘consented to the disclosure’ (as I see it). You can’t argue clickthrough - people use Facebook for weeks/months/years - there’s no excuse for not giving the Terms of Use a proper read in all that time.
ALRC Report regarding Facebook/social networking - same as Darryl @ 31 - if I’m reading correctly, it doesn’t look like much will change at all for adults - though a lot more in there for kids. Recommendations for more education, clearer disclosures of Terms of Use on sign-up (multiple OKs), default to ‘private’ settings on signup, better security, more education for kids, social networking sites to better screen for kids, parental consent via credit card etc to sign up to children’s networking sites, parental consent for third-party disclosure of information of children, children not be searchable on site or from engines, more international collaboration and partnerships etc etc. Mainly preventative measures for adults.
From what I read though, I liked the general tone of the report. Nothing heavy-handed…or over the top ridiculous for kids, just an onus on the companies marketing to them to clean up their act.