Some of us from the Office attended the MESH Conference in Toronto last month, jumping at the chance to hear a number of thought leaders and innovators in media, technology and society. Privacy, data protection and reputation management were subjects discussed in several of the sessions, but two video clips are available that demonstrate how online users can have wildly different approaches to privacy and the protection of personal information.
In the first clip, Lane Merrifield of Club Penguin describes, in general terms, how his children’s site tries to lock down access and limit the chance for “incidents” among the members of the Club Penguin community.
In the second clip, Mark McKay interviews Nancy Baym (University of Kansas) and Mark Kingwell (University of Toronto). They argue that the best defense is a good offense when it comes to protecting your reputation online. In other words, any attempt to malign your reputation will be weakened if you have already established a positive online reputation.