Writing privacy publicly

The other day, I happened to see where someone I cared a bit about was upset.

Yeah, it happened days ago. You either saw it or you didn’t – and you probably wouldn’t put me and this person together, simply because I’ve never met them.

Not in real life.

I’ve traded a few e-mails, some tweets, and read blogs and listened to interviews. I know enough about them that I could claim them as an acquaintance. Enough that, if I were close enough on the planet to have comforted them at the time, I would have. Human decency, if nothing else.

At the same time, I have to be horribly careful about talking about my day to day life. Most of the people I know IRL at least know where I am online. It’s caused problems more than once when they thought I was talking about them. It’s caused problems when I really was talking about them.

And it’s a weird place to be.

In some ways, writing to a blog seems safer – at least at first. In some ways it’s easier to be open and completely honest with people who are far away.

At least, until the rest of the internet falls on you.