How digital voyeurism is destroying privacy

[Commentary] When people lament that privacy is dead or dying, they typically point fingers outwards, saying that government and corporate surveillance deserve all the blame. But as recent events highlight, our urge for online voyeurism plays an important role in the erosion of privacy.

As the Ashley Madison hack had the Internet gawking over details of the possible infidelity of its members, another lurid tragedy was going viral thanks to a woman live tweeting the breakup of a couple sitting next to her on an airplane. Both are examples of people succumbing to their baser instincts and failing to look away when when someone's personal life is spilled online. But until we can resist those urges, stop from clicking those articles, and trolling the databases hackers' victims, we are just encouraging other hackers with an ax to grind, digital eavesdroppers, and snoopers to uncover our private moments and publishing them for the world to see. And, unfortunately, it doesn't seem like we've hit that point of maturity in our collective Internet evolution.

The onus is on us. We need to accept responsibility for having made privacy-eviscerating stories popular. And we need to come to terms with our role in enticing hackers and voyeurs to do illegal and immoral things. So, let’s flip the script. We’re powerful enough to make stories about protecting privacy the ones media can’t wait to run.

[Evan Selinge is a professor of philosophy at Rochester Institute of Technology]