I was interviewed via email last week for an article that appeared in the local newspaper, the Standard-Examiner.  The article was about lying while using text messaging.  I was quite pleased with how accurately I was quoted, which doesn't always happen to me when I am interviewed.

While it easier to lie in a text than face to face, our new web-enabled world also makes it much harder to get away with lying. That is because we leave digital tracks on Facebook, in texts, and on the web that are hard to deny when we are called to account.

Earlier in the summer, I was also interviewed by the Deseret News and by KSL Radio.  The article was based on the NSA revelations and emphasized my point that digital privacy is an illusion.  We need to recognize this and not work for more privacy regulation, which is a fool's errand, but work to force more transparency on centers of power.  Governments and corporations, which are the centers of power in our society, need to be required to describe what they are doing with information and held accountable.  The light of day will make such centers of power more responsible.  My thinking on this matter has been substantially influenced by David Brin's The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force Us To Choose Between Privacy And Freedom? (ebook).

Posted: 17 September 2013