On Search
In late 2005, a Marquette dental school student was suspended over blog posts which were critical of classmates and teachers at the writer’s school. No specific names were mentioned by the writer, but the punishments doled out by Marquette were extremely severe. Loss of scholarship, suspension, community service, demands for a public apology. This (as the article puts it) “draconian” reaction to public expression has caused me to remove tumbledry from public search engines. As a dental student, I’d prefer not to deal with the hassle of defending everything I write to a professional review committee. So, as of a few days ago, no Google search for my name, the phrase tumbledry, Mykala, etc. will pull up this page. Nope. We’re completely unlisted.
Unfortunately, unlisting tumbledry prevents the “search” feature on the front page from functioning. Why would I make this site less usable in exchange for privacy? I’ll take a little time to explain my thought process.
I’ve always had a conflicted relationship with tumbledry as an indexed, searchable, public place. While I love random visitors stopping by and sharing their opinions, I also enjoy the idea of a quietly hidden little destination where everyone feels safe. Furthermore, I’m fascinated by the idea of this space as an “über phone number”. That is, when you get to know someone pretty well, you give them your phone number. As years go by, they know how they can reach you. I like the idea of tumbledry as the internet version of this — when I meet you and get to know you, I’ll leave you my website address. You can follow where my life journey is taking me, and hopefully I can entertain you along the way. I love to think of the space as a way to stay in touch.
When searches for my name pull up random posts out of context, the system breaks down. So, to everyone: please keep visiting, and sorry the search doesn’t work right now.
Now, after this unlisting, I don’t know if I should list tumbledry on my Facebook profile or no. Hard to say. Thoughts are welcome.
Comments
Sagert
I’d say NOT linking from Facebook would be pretty consistent with the thought process you’ve described, though I suppose that depends on your privacy settings at Facebook, and the way you manage your friends (who you accept requests from, etc.). I don’t have any sources to share, but I remember hearing of potential employers/schools checking up on applicants through Facebook and MySpace and other SNS.
John
Hey bud. I agree with you. You are also working your way into the world of patient/dentist relationships. Your thoughts could become lawsuit material. I personally try to avoid any controversial discussions about my job or employees within the virtual public sphere. But thanks Sagert, thats a great idea on how to research applicants! Avoids the rigmarole of background checks!
Sagert
No problem, John. Perhaps a welcome excuse to spend time on Facebook :P Although one disadvantage of search being disabled is that I could not search to see if you had already mentioned this documentary, Alex: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1094594/ So sorry if it’s a re-recommend. I’ve only watched half of it, but feel pretty comfortable recommending it.
Nils
Interesting how much trouble can result from having a personal blog. Here’s another way of retaining privacy without having to take it off search engines, facebook, etc. Just dissociate all references to your name on the site. We faithful visitors to the Tumble know who you are. What’s the likelihood that this would be a viable approach? I guess someone could always reveal your involvement with TumbleDry but how could anyone prove a connection between you and your website? IP address maybe? So again, would that be a viable alternative reaction to this turn of events?
On a sidenote about Facebook and employers. If you restrict access to your Facebook profile to just friends, there would be no way for employers to access that page, right? It seems almost obviously so, but in today’s high tech world maybe there’s a way around that.
Nils
OK, after reading the linked content, I would have no qualms keeping TumbleDry as public as it has always been. If sound, moral, ethical, and logical critiques of that isolated event say anything it’s that this specific case was overblown to ridiculous proportions and is unlikely to have repeatable consequences anywhere else. Secrecy for the sake of protection from vindictive bastards like the Marquette Dean is unwarranted. If you continue to use TumbleDry as you have (and I’ve never seen any ill-tempered content espoused by you here) than rational thought, ie the law, can be your protection. Because honestly, what content on this site has ever been slightly negative or critical of anyone, let alone anonymous students or professors. There is nothing that can even be taken out of context here. I think anyone could safely assure you that you have nothing to fear from morons like Marquette’s Dean. There’s my two cents.
Dan McKeown
Wait, you are going to school at Marquette?
Nils
Final thoughts: I think the public listing of TumbleDry is a good thing. I think you have an interesting blog here with insightful remarks/thoughts on life in general. It could be a source of inspiration for unknown amounts of people outside of the (small?) ring of regulars that frequent the site. Keep that in mind.
Mykala
Nils: I completely agree. While I know my fiance well enough to know that he will likely not change his decision due mostly to his incessant practicality and need to cover all of his bases (hi honey!), I believe that his decision to do so is a concession to the ridiculous powers that may be. I think the Marquette incident says more about the bureaucracy of these institutions than it does about the need to protect oneself in this crazy online world. However, I must also say that I don’t see really see how removing the site from listings will reduce the potential positive influence Tumbledry might have for those outside our regular ring of loyal visitors.
And an additional comment on the question of Facebook privacy… having worked for a short time in an office at St. Thomas, I know how easy it is for a boss to ask a current student worker for access to the St. Thomas network on Facebook, and how much pressure that student feels to allow this. Additionally, I’ve seen actual university employees create facebook accounts (because all you need is a valid school e-mail) to request to become friends with various students for various investigatory reasons. While these examples are limited to very specific circumstances, I could imagine how easy it might be to view any individual profiles with a little cunning and some abused authority. Scary.
Dan: Alex goes to the U. Of Minnesota. In Minneapolis. Minnesota. Also, we should be friends sometime. I’ve forgotten what you look like.
Mykala
Haha. Oook. So, it turns out that I didn’t actually realize what it meant to unlist the site, and had thought that it just meant that when you searched Alex’s full name, Tumbledry was no longer listed. I think my technological inexperience is showing!
So, Nils, I actually agree with you even more now. I wonder if there’s a way to make all past comments private and start anew with a “no last name references in the comments” policy, and continued vague descriptions about all proper nouns in posts?
That sounds like a good compromise to me. Is it possible, though, that having such a ridiculous spelling of my name makes it unlikely that an association between myself and an author with all of Alex’s situational circumstances could be sheer coincidence? Couldn’t conclusions be drawn using a collection of clues from posts and commenters if someone really wanted to do so?
Maybe I need a nom de plum?!? That’d be sweet.
Dan McKeown
Which begs the question Mykala, what would you prefer for your pen name?
As for my 2 cents, I think it is a shame that people will be unable to stumble upon Tumbledry in the future and enjoy all that it has to offer. I always loved it when a new commenter would throw themselves into the mix and completely change the way I looked at a post or picture. It was always kind of exciting to me that someone completely unfamiliar with Tumbledry, St. Thomas, even Alex, could find the site and post their thoughts.
Makes me wonder what the future of the internet will look like.
Dan McKeown
Also, I agree Mykala, I would love to be friends again. Seeing as how your fiance is terribly preoccupied these days I feel as if I should be contacting you to be making the plans. Along those lines, I recently shaved off my beard so it is probably good that you do not have a memory of what I used to look like so you will not be so surprised. Anyhow, yhay friendship!
Dan McKeown
Question for you Alex, can we no longer comment on photos? I wanted to make a comment on one but there was no option to do so.
On a similar note, I saw an interesting article that touches on a subject that you have addressed on a few occasions:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7738342.stm
Click on the enlarge picture link to see the striking differences between the two pictures (besides the obvious change in backdrop). I could not help but wonder if the fact that this recently promoted general is a woman had anything to do with the significant photo altering.
I thought I would end with a bit of trivia. How many female generals are there in the US Army?