Public behaviour

The Internet is an unforgiving place. Fleeting, impulsive actions have serious, long-term consequences. Lulled by a false sense of anonymity—feeling safely hidden behind a glowing screen, people speak too frankly, share too much and delve into the darkest parts of humanity to satisfy some crude sense of curiosity.

And those dark parts of our humanity are not even really human. They are manufactured by the

Internet itself, a society without a social contract, where anything goes. But it’s also a public space. Anything you do is part of a permanent record that will come back to slap you in the face. No one is immune, and no one will be sympathetic.

It’s a lesson Ala Buzreba, a young Liberal candidate in Calgary, learned recently. Between 2009 and 2011—Buzreba would have been only 15 to 17 years old—she lost her temper on Twitter and suggested people whose political opinions she disagreed with should kill themselves, or should have never been born.

When those tweets came to light last week, she was forced to step down as a candidate.

The words likely felt temporary. They were part of an argument. Had they been spoken, alone in her room they would have disappeared into the ether. But they weren’t spoken. They were typed into that public space. And at 21, they were her downfall.

It’s been a long time since the Internet started being a part of our lives. For some, it’s still some tertiary piece of technology, used once in a while to send messages where posting a letter would be too inconvenient, or to access some useful piece of information. Good for them.

But for the rest of us, we’ve had more than a decade to learn that the Internet is a public space.

We’ve had plenty of time to understand that the way we conduct ourselves online matters as much as the way we conduct ourselves on the street, in our communities. That screen might feel like a wall of privacy, but it’s not.

And when we’re in public and we buy things we don’t want others to know about, say and do things we don’t want others to remember, commit indiscretions or criminal acts, we risk being found out. It’s not always right or fair, but it’s just true. The Internet is no different.

Sure, the people who signed up for accounts on Ashley Madison or Established Men had an expectation of privacy. And the hackers who exposed their information invaded that privacy. But it’s about as much privacy as two people might expect if they park a car in a public place for an illicit affair.

The Internet isn’t that new anymore. And it’s not somewhere we can go to behave badly. It’s a tool, and if we misuse it, there’s a good chance that will lead to regret. Of course, if any of us haven’t learned that by now, chances are we never will.

mihal@mihalzada.com