网络隐私焦虑症是杞人忧天吗？

    有些人拥护隐私，而杰夫•贾维斯却提倡公开。在《公共部分：数字时代的分享如何改善我们的工作和生活方式》一书中，这位见解独特的网络乐观主义者声称，如果我们太痴迷于保护网络上的个人信息，那么我们将错失公开这些信息所带来的重大机遇。

    他的这个观点令人耳目一新。在网络隐私这个话题上，人们常常都觉得，网络——尤其是像Facebook这种包含大量个人信息的社交网站——可能会危害我们的子孙，破坏我们的社会。在有关网络隐私的讨论中，常常包括了奥威尔式（Orwellian）的忧虑：担心受到政府监控。我们不希望自己的网站浏览记录被用来帮助广告商追踪我们在互联网上的行踪。我们也不想让盗贼知道我们是否在家。毫无疑问，我们渴望获得信息时代所带来的好处，但如果有关我们生活的信息以数字形式被别人收集利用就太可怕了。

    相比之下，贾维斯却以轻松的心态来看待这些问题。但要想打败隐私拥护者，首先必须定义什么是“隐私”。这可能并不像想象的那样简单。Facebook创始人马克•扎克伯格试图将人们对隐私的渴望改造成为对控制个人数字信息的渴望。他声称，人们渴望分享信息，但希望由自己来决定谁可以浏览、利用这些信息。贾维斯说，这种定义太过简单化。隐私是非常复杂的东西，毕竟在生活中我们与他人有着千丝万缕的联系。我们如何确定哪些是自己本人的信息？如果我分享的信息牵涉到其他人，那么由谁来控制呢？

    贾维斯写到，或许我们看待问题的角度刚好颠倒了。他阐述了控制信息类别（永不结束的打地鼠游戏）和控制信息如何被使用（个人和机构在获取他人信息时所作出的选择）之间的区别。这就是他对“公开”的定义。他随后又列出了许多帮助人们思考应该如何尊重他人信息的道德规范，并且提出了某些具体的指导（如：不要窃取信息）和更笼统的见解（如：动机很重要）。值得指出的是，他提出的很多规则与现实生活中父母们教给我们的文化规范大同小异，核心都是：不要泄露别人的秘密。

    贾维斯本人有点像个暴露狂。在公开哪些个人信息的问题上，他所作出的某些选择简直令人匪夷所思。比如，他在罹患前列腺癌期间曾在博客上事无巨细地描述了整个康复过程。但是，他也因此收获了朋友和陌生人的大量支持，他们同情他、鼓励他，还为他推荐良医。这个故事最令人感兴趣之处在于他对此所做的解释，说明如何以及何时分享这些信息而不致牵涉到其他人（比如他的子女或妻子）。适当的透明并不是指随时随地把所有事情都告诉给所有人听，而是指在公开信息的问题上不断作出明智的判断。

    《公共部分》这本书提醒我们，每当新技术（比如日益发展的网络社交能力或者移动式印刷机）出现的时候，人们最初的反应常常都是恐惧。贾维斯指出，最早期的书籍错漏百出。这些印刷错误可能会在极短时间内广泛传播，对社会造成更大的危害。1631年，印刷商们曾因为意外漏印了《圣经》第七戒中的“不”这个关键字而被处以罚金。

    幸好，我们没有揪着这些印刷错误不放——此后，信息通过印刷书籍和文件的大规模传播已经从根本上重塑了这个世界。贾维斯大概会把这种推论应用于社交网站身上。世界是复杂的，我们在数字时代里留在身后的遗迹正以新的方式将我们暴露于人前。我们在制定社会规范、处理网络信息的过程中肯定会犯下许多错误。贾维斯的这本书并不是呼吁人们在Twitter上公布自己早餐吃了些什么，或者在博客上公布所在的公司的财务状况，而是提供了一种现场指导，使人们能够以乐观而不是恐惧的心态来看待网络这种新技术。

    译者：千牛絮

    Privacy has its advocates. Jeff Jarvis has made himself an advocate for publicness. In Public Parts: How Sharing in the Digital Age Improves the Way we Work and Live, the original Internet optimist argues that if we become too obsessed with guarding all personal information on the 'Net, we'll miss important opportunities that come with making information available.

    It's a refreshing take on a topic often covered by people who feel that the Internet -- and in particular, social networks like Facebook and the vast amount of personal data that flow within them -- threatens to imperil our children and undermine our society. Discussions about Internet privacy often include Orwellian allusions to fear: We're concerned about government surveillance. We don't want targeted cookies to help advertisers track our Internet wanderings. We don't want robbers to know when we're not home. Sure, we want the benefits that come with the information age, but all this data about our lives that is accruing digitally? Creepy.

   By contrast, Jarvis approaches these questions with delight. But before he can take down the privacy advocates, he has to offer a definition for the term. That's not as easy as you might think. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has tried to recast the desire for privacy as a desire for control over our digital identities. He argues that people want to share information, but we want to determine who gets to see and use it. Jarvis says this definition is too tidy. Privacy is much messier. We live in relationship with other people, after all. How do we even define what qualifies as our own information? If I share information that implicates you, who gets to control that?

    Maybe we are looking through the wrong end of the telescope, Jarvis writes. He makes the distinction between regulating the type of information that is revealed -- a never-ending game of Whac-a-Mole -- and regulating how it is used -- the choices people and institutions make when they are privy to someone else's information. This is his definition of "publicness." He then lays out a body of ethics to help think about how to respect other peoples' data, offering some specific directives (Don't steal information) and also more general thoughts (Motive matters). It's worth noting that many of these rules are not so dissimilar from the cultural norms our parents taught us for how to regard privacy in the offline world: Don't tell other peoples' secrets.

    Jarvis himself is a bit of an exhibitionist. It's hard to imagine making some of the choices he does about what personal information enters the public domain. When he got prostate cancer, for example, he used his blog to describe his recovery process in great detail. But in return, he gathered a good deal of support from friends and strangers who empathized, recommended doctors and cheered him on. The most interesting note to this story is his explanation for how and when to share that information so it didn't expose others in his life -- his kids or his wife, for example. Radical transparency is not one decision to tell everyone everything all the time, but rather a series of smart judgment calls.

    At best, Public Parts is a reminder that when any new technology is introduced -- be it the growing social capabilities of the Internet or the movable type of the printing press -- the immediate reaction is often fear. Jarvis points out that the earliest books were riddled with errors. These printed mistakes could suddenly spread widely and therefore they were considered to be more dangerous to society. In 1631, printers were fined for publishing a copy of the Bible that accidentally omitted the crucial word "not" from the Seventh Commandment.

    It's a good thing we didn't dwell too long on the typos -- the mass distribution of information through printed books and papers has fundamentally reshaped the world. Jarvis would apply this reasoning to the social web. The world is complicated -- and our dynamic digital fossils trail along behind us, exposing us in new ways. We will make a lot of mistakes as we develop social norms around how to treat information online. His book is not so much a rallying cry for tweeting your breakfast choices and blogging your company financials as it is a field guide for how to navigate this new technology with optimism rather than fear.