Monica Attard theguardian.com, Tuesday 13 August 2013
Politicians' family members shouldn't lose their right to privacy for choices they haven't made. Journalists should know better
'Politicians' family members shouldn't lose their right to privacy for choices they haven’t made.'
How we think about privacy is changing. Once earnestly held concerns about confidentiality are giving way to a benign acceptance that we all have a growing digital footprint. What you put online not only stays online, but is there for all to see. But is it there for all to pillage?
The Daily Telegraph today published a story about Marcus Rudd, the prime minister's younger son, who published photos of himself on his own private Facebook page. In one shot, he posed with a cigar hanging out of his mouth. Below another photo of a rather dishevelled looking Marcus, a friend noted "f ... Marcus you are getting your Charlie Manson on." Beneath both photos was the ambiguous provenance tagline, “supplied”. The generous source might have been a friend, or it might be a reporter, depending on Marcus’s privacy settings.
The Telegraph’s editorial justification for the story was that the cigar-dangling photo was at odds with Marcus’ dad’s proposal to raise cigarettes costs. Needless to say, the story was also in keeping with the papers pledge to bring down the Labor government.
Now, Marcus and his brother Nick are both working on their dad’s election campaign, which was enough to raise a few eyebrows and concern about nepotism when the appointments were announced.
Nevertheless, a question remains: should a young man barely out of his silly teenage years be subjected to ridicule for what looks suspiciously like political point scoring? As one person opined on Twitter: "If this is newsworthy, I can assume he is pregnant”.
Millions of us are prepared to trade our privacy for exposure everyday, posting thoughts and pictures on social media platforms for the benefit of family and friends. My bet is that few of us actually check our privacy settings on social media, Facebook in particular, to ensure some limited degree of protection. Maybe we don’t care enough about who knows what about us. Maybe that’s why we seem so prepared, even eager, to enable geo-location spotters to keep our friends up to date with our every movement (though a plea from my heart – I really don’t want to know when my friends succumb to McDonald's cravings, so please have mercy).
Aside from the “I don’t care about my privacy” mix is another camp, which argues that privacy isn’t all that its cracked up to be: that the more open we are, the better a society we become. Twitter users are scathing of those who refuse to reveal their identity, especially if they troll. Business benefits when they know what you like, so they can better target what they sell. Get sick, and you’ll find communities of people online prepared to not only name themselves, but share the most private of detail about similar ailments which is undoubtedly a social good.
Yet oddly, and unless we willingly surrender it, we still assume privacy is a right – there being a difference between throwing yourself into an open online forum, and posting a picture of yourself on your Facebook page.
To an extent, politicians surrender their privacy for the privilege of office, though there’s still argument about whether they have any right to bleat when their family's holidays snaps are published, or when every of their private encounter is recorded.
But their family members don’t – or shouldn’t – lose their right to privacy for choices they haven’t made, unless they do so voluntarily. And the private lives of the staff of politicians, even if they’re family members, shouldn’t become open books from which publishers rip pages.
Publishing a private Facebook photo of the prime minister's son and linking it to a policy the newspaper presumably feels is unfair to its readership seems unfair and invasive. What exactly did News Corp learn from Leveson?
