{"id":19142,"date":"2014-09-23T07:00:16","date_gmt":"2014-09-23T11:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/?p=19142"},"modified":"2014-09-22T17:41:11","modified_gmt":"2014-09-22T21:41:11","slug":"why-i-black-out-twitter-handles-on-blog-posts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/2014\/09\/23\/why-i-black-out-twitter-handles-on-blog-posts\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I Black Out Twitter Handles on Blog Posts"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"u22\"<\/a>
Blacked out Twitter image from my post last week<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Netiquette. I seriously hate that word. BUT an issue of internet-based-etiquette (blogger etiquette, specifically) recently came to my attention, and I\u2019m interested in\u00a0others’ practices and thoughts.<\/p>\n

As a blogger, I often analyze content from Facebook and Twitter. In doing so, I usually post images of actual tweets, comments, and status updates. These are forms of data, and are useful in delineating the public tenor with regard to a particular issue, the arguments on opposing sides of a debate, and the \u2018voice\u2019 with which people articulate their relevant thoughts and sentiments.<\/p>\n

As a common practice, I black out all identifying information when reposting this content. Last week, I posted some tweets with the names and images redacted. A reader commented<\/a> on my post to ask why I did so, given that the tweets were public. We had a quick discussion, but, as I mentioned in that discussion, this issue deserves independent treatment.<\/p>\n

My rationale for blacking out names\/handles\/pictures, even when accounts and content are public, is that it is, in my opinion, the respectful thing to do. Privacy is confusing on the Internet, and I doubt those people intended for their content to reappear on my blog post. That is, just because something is <\/em>public doesn\u2019t mean others should <\/em>publicize it. As a general rule, I rely on the ethic of \u201cDon\u2019t be a jerk.\u201d To restate it positively, I believe in collective care and stewardship, in which we all act with each other\u2019s best interest in mind.<\/p>\n

To be sure, one might argue that I am doing a disservice by using content without giving name credit. This is a valid point. In some cases, people are not only aware that their content is public, but this publicity is intentional.\u00a0 That I use their ideas without proper citation is reasonable cause for people to get pretty cheezed off. Taken to its logical extreme, I could be accused of intellectual property violation. Taken at the level of my own personal ethics, idea use without citation is kind of a jerk move.<\/p>\n

The trouble is that unless a person explicitly states otherwise\u2014either publicly or through personal communication\u2014that they wish for their name to appear or not appear, I have no way of knowing their intention. If I were a journalist for a well-funded publication, with all of the concomitant resources (i.e., time, money, and assistants), I could seek out individual content producers and ask their preference. This is a relatively laborious process, though, and of course people may or may not respond to direct inquires. As a safe short cut, I err on the side of privacy protection. The stakes are simply not even. To fail to give name credit is at worst a neutral outcome for the content creator. To attribute an idea to someone who did not realize their voice would spread so far, could potentially have dire consequences.<\/p>\n

This is my deeply imperfect rationale. I\u2019m interested in what others do, and their reasoning behind it.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Follow Jenny on Twitter (where she won\u2019t reveal your true identity, unless you ask her to): @Jenny_L_Davis<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Netiquette. I seriously hate that word. BUT an issue of internet-based-etiquette (blogger etiquette, specifically) recently came to my attention, and I\u2019m interested in\u00a0others’ practices and thoughts. As a blogger, I often analyze content from Facebook and Twitter. In doing so, I usually post images of actual tweets, comments, and status updates. These are forms of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1753,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9967],"tags":[39,424,26673],"class_list":["post-19142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","tag-ethics","tag-privacy","tag-twitter-blogging"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1753"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19142"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19142\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19146,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19142\/revisions\/19146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/cyborgology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}