Curiosity Killed The Cat, But Gave Us Facebook…!

The news last week that Conservative minister, Oliver Letwin, had been discarding official documents in a park bin unsurprisingly led to huge public outrage in the press, on social networking sites and in office canteens all over the UK.

Ironically though, thousands of people have expressed and continue expressing support for Wikileaks on the likes of Facebook and Twitter, with even public figures such as Jemima Khan, Ken Loach and John Pilger publically articulating their support for Wikileaks by raising bail money for founder, Julian Assange. Jemima Khan said of her support of Wikileaks, “I believe in the principle of the human right to freedom of information and our right to be told the truth.” So how concerned are we really with state privacy and in fact, privacy in general?

Privacy issues have been debated incessantly over the years, with celebrity injunctions becoming a hot topic in the press and in parliament. Being seemingly anxious about keeping private information confidential, it’s ironic that thousands of Twitter users along with Lib Dem MP, John Hemming, openly flouted Ryan Giggs’ injunction to cover up his alleged extramarital affair.

After news spread about Letwin’s carelessness, journalists, colleagues and the general public were all eager to know exactly what he had mindlessly discarded in a park bin. So despite the privacy of the state being at risk, surely all we really care about is who did what, where, when, why and how?

In addition, the laxity of personal privacy has become increasingly apparent since the introduction of Facebook. Logging onto the social networking site today, I found various ‘friends’ posting about what they fancy making for dinner tonight or why so-and-so broke up with so-and-so for whatever reason. I read an entertaining article on The Daily Mash recently which pointed to exactly how certain Facebook features make us more and more open about our private lives. How many of us actually scrawl through these meaningless statuses on a day-to-day basis and even post up our own for others to see?

No matter what way we look at it, curiosity is a part of human nature: without it, Newton wouldn’t have worked so hard to find out why the apple fell from the tree, Alexander Graham Bell wouldn’t have created the telephone so housewives worldwide could gossip with their friends without having to leave the house, and well, Mark Zuckerburg wouldn’t have created Facebook so people could pry into the lives of his 800 million+ users. The growth of communication platforms such as telephones and the Internet and of course, people’s relentless curiosity, means that when it comes to information, people need to accept that nothing is private any more. As a result, reputation management is now more important than ever. While businesses and individuals should be embracing this, they also need to ensure that everything that is made public about them isn’t something they’ll be ashamed of.

It seems we thrive on information about anything and everything. Admit it, who doesn’t like sneering at the pompous Conservative ‘Fat Cats’ and money-hungry, adulterous celebrities once in a while…?