Privacy, blogging, ethics, and oh yeah, that Chronicle article

I recently ran across Bloggers' Expectations of Privacy and Accountability: An Initial Survey, published in the April 2005 issue of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication. One theme that jumps out at me is the researchers' findings about how blogging affects bloggers' careers; I found it especially pertinent in light of the now-infamous Chronicle article (my emphasis):

When asked to explain the kinds of problems they had encountered because of materials published on their blogs, respondents described the following situations:

A message that I posted insulted a co-worker at a non-profit where I work. The non-profit suspended me from my work for three months.
- a male blogger from New York

I got 7 extra weekend duties for criticizing an army officer, even though I didn't name him, but merely alluded to him on my blog. - a male blogger from Singapore

A TV station that I worked for […] found my writings about people at the station, from a personal standpoint and said that I had spoken to some in a (subjectively) non-flattering light. After seeing these public entries in my blog, I was fired.
- a male blogger from North Carolina

These stories echo those found on newspapers and magazines about bloggers who have lost their jobs because of materials they published on their sites (Bray, 2004; Phillips, 2003; Sarnataro, 2003; St. John, 2003). Clearly, the notion of what defines "socially acceptable behavior" on blogs has yet to be collectively defined.

[. . .]

Bloggers write not only about themselves but often also about other people with whom they interact. When asked whether they sought other people's permission to blog about them, 66% of respondents almost never asked permission, and only 3% said they always asked permission first. Interestingly, only 9% of the survey respondents said they never blogged about people they knew personally. Thus the great majority of respondents write about people they know but most of them never ask their permission to do so. Furthermore, no correlation was found between how private the content of an entry is and whether authors ask permission to write about the people they know. In other words, respondents who tend to write about more private situations or experiences do not ask permission from their friends or acquaintances any more frequently than those who do not write personal entries.

[. . .]

Will companies read candidates' blogs before making hiring decisions, similar to what happened with Usenet newsgroups in the past? One of the respondents in the survey alluded to this kind of situation:

Early on in my job hunt, I applied for a low-paying job and then agonized [on my blog] over whether to take it. The next day, I noticed several hits to my journal from that employer, and they never called me back. I have no way of knowing for certain, but I suspect my blog post may have cost me that job.
- a female blogger from Massachusetts

[. . .]

Despite the emerging privacy strategies described in this study, authors reported having difficulty negotiating privacy boundaries under certain circumstances. The workplace is one setting where such problematic situations regularly occur. Bloggers' privacy boundaries in the workplace have yet not been clearly established, either socially or legally. As the quotations in the previous sections illustrate, this is one area of conflict that greatly affects bloggers, at times resulting in authors being fired from their jobs. It is likely that, while disagreement over what constitutes acceptable blogging material persists, bloggers will continue to be reprimanded and employers will continue to be frustrated by their employees' blogging activities.

[. . .]

One recommendation that emerges from the findings of this study is that companies should share the responsibility of articulating what constitutes acceptable blogging behavior and what they see as problematic practices. Some companies have already started to enunciate blogging guidelines for employees. A few companies have posted written policies concerning personal blogs on their Web sites, including clear, point-by-point suggestions addressing issues that are sensitive to the company but that may not occur to employee bloggers when they choose to discuss matters related to the company's technology or business.8 Such policies could serve as the first step in a broader process of negotiation between employers and employees as blogging practices continue to evolve.

Now I'd like to point toward some of the considerations in the AoIR Ethics Report:

One broad consideration: the greater the acknowledged publicity of the venue, the less obligation there may be to protect individual privacy, confidentiality, right to informed consent, etc. (p. 5)

[. . .]

A broad consideration: the greater the vulnerability of the author / subject - the greater the obligation of the researcher to protect the author / subject.(p. 5)

[. . .]

Alternatively: Are participants in this environment best understood as “subjects” (in the senses common in human subjects research in medicine and the social sciences) – or as authors whose texts/artifacts are intended as public?

If participants are best understood as subjects in the first sense (e.g., as they participate in small chatrooms, MUDs or MOOs intended to provide reasonably secure domains for private exchanges), then greater obligations to protect autonomy, privacy, confidentiality, etc., are likely to follow.

If, by contrast, subjects may be understood as authors intending for their work to be public (e.g., e-mail postings to large listserves and USENET groups; public webpages such as homepages, Web logs, etc.; chat exchanges in publicly accessible chatrooms, etc.) – then fewer obligations to protect autonomy, privacy, confidentiality, etc., will likely follow. (p. 7)

That's it for now.