The Future of Reputation

The world has become fascinated with social networking sites, blogging, and everything that we express across the internet world. Solove's book, The Future of Reputation, gives us many instances where "invading each other's privacy" and "even invading our own privacy by exposures of information we later come to regret" can take a toll on our individual rights. (preface) We deal with rumors and reputation on a constant, daily basis but with our culture revolving around the internet; how do rumors become more or less valuable? Solove rotates through a matter of subjects that range through how the flow of information, even our personal information, can liberate or constrain us, all the way to expressing that "technology may change but our human nature will remain the same." (pg. 205) The internet is growing every single day and with that is giving us the power, and everyone around us, to build or destroy the privacy some of us have taken years to keep safe.

Free Speech and the Law
The role of the law plays a big part in Solove's argument. "New technologies rarely give rise to questions we have never addressed before. More often they make the old questions more complex." (pg. 105) As discussed before, everyone is aware of gossip, rumors,

shaming of repuation, and other such ways of tormenting ones reputation; but the level of complexity has deepend. Throughout history, the spread of information has evolved with the rise of the newspaper, magazines, and now with the internet and social networking sites. Part two of Solove's book takes you through a whirl wind of how the spreading and publishing of gossip has changed and that law could eventually provide a solution to all of these privacy issues. Solove believes we need to find a middle ground between [|libertarian] and [|authoritarian] approaches. It would make sure people understood the difference between gossip online and offline but this presents lawsuits and how the law of privacy must be broadened to cover all the aspects. Overall, Solove believes that "the law works best when it can hover as a threat in the background but allow most problems to be worked out informally. The threat of the lawsuit helps to keep people in check." (pg. 123) But is anything really private anymore? We overexpose our identity and thoughts so much that to protect our privacy on the web, everything must be kept secret. But, if we've already given our information out, then it is exposed to the public, and therefore, not private or secret any longer. We have to rething our definition and understanding of what privacy has become to mean in our culture.