Privacy and the Democratization of Fame

If privacy and the ability to preserve your reputation are essential components to personal freedom, then Michael Jackson was imprisoned. As the media hysteria surrounding his death exemplified, Jackson’s life was a cautionary tale about the weight of relentless public scrutiny. Popular wisdom holds that his woes are the unfortunate but inevitable costs of fame. But with the advent of the digital age, now we are all potential subjects of public analysis or ridicule, albeit on a much smaller scale. No longer is it just celebrities who have to worry about going outside on a bad hair day or whether details surrounding their love lives will be made public. If you have a mullet, a picture of your haircut could end up on www.ratemymullet.com. Or if you go through an ugly breakup, your story may be featured on www.badexboyfriend.com.

While many have decried the breakdown in privacy triggered by the Internet, historically we have discounted the privacy rights of celebrities. The paparazzi and tabloid journalism might be ugly, but we tend to accept the intrusion into celebrity private lives as a given. We don’t, however, readily accept the similar intrusion into the privacy of ordinary citizens, even when the actions giving rise to their Internet notoriety occur in public (see e.g., the so-called “Dog Poop Girl” who refused to clean up her dog’s mess on the subway and was later humiliated on the Internet for her actions. The shaming was so extreme that she ultimately dropped out of college). I am not convinced there is a rational justification for our double standard.

On one hand, we can tell ourselves that celebrities were asking for public scrutiny or at least should have expected it when they sought out fame. The problem is that this “bargain” is not always entered into knowingly (as in the case of those born into celebrity families) and even when it is, the precise terms of the bargain were probably not clear initially. When Britney Spears got her first record deal, could she reasonably have expected to be a favorite target of tabloids as she self-destructed years later? Of course not, just as the Dog Poop Girl could not have expected her entire country to learn of her rude behavior on the subway, despite the fact that she committed her conduct in public. When it comes to private citizens, we recognize that the line between public and private is not strictly binary, but for celebrities, there is no such nuance.

Another popular justification for our lack of concern about the privacy rights of celebrities is that the details of their personal lives are newsworthy. But it seems to me that newsworthiness is just another way of saying that it satisfies public curiosity. There is no intrinsic value to celebrity gossip. Instead, the test is whether people are interested, which means everything posted on the Internet is inherently newsworthy because someone cared enough to post it.

In my opinion, the double standard between the private lives of celebrities and average citizens is largely bogus. There is no compelling moral reason why private citizens used to be free from public scrutiny while the lives of celebrities were freely dissected. The only thing that has changed is how easy it is to spread information. With the Internet, celebrity status is being democratized, and with even fleeting fame, comes scrutiny.

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