Miriam Parkinson

Hack on Triple J had a story regarding blogs on the 3rd of March (17min20 in for those playing at home) They were citing the dangers of blogging and how your workmates or boss could google you and find out things about political ideals, opinions etc that you might not want them to know.

Now for me personally this isn’t really a problem. I tend to be very open about my opinions, and I would never say anything on my blog that might compromise my position at work. (well, once work consists of anything other than being a checkout chick)

The thing that really disturbed me was their story of an Iranian man on his way to America for a conference on blogging. Apparently as soon as they found out what he was in America for the googled him and started reading his blog. Then, on the basis of a few entries in his blog they decided that he had been working illegally and gave him a 6 month ban into America. Wtf!
I’m all for national security and all that but googling people as they go through customs is ridiculous. Not to mention what happens when they don’t find you, when they find a different Miriam Parkinson, or Peter Smith etc who happens to be a complete psycho.

Another problem that clearly exists is that what they find on the internet could be years old, opinions shift, angsty teenagers grow up and life changes. Years ago I googled a friend for shits and giggles and came up with a post he left on a Beetles fan site when he was 10. Does that mean that he still has the slightest interest in them? No.

I believe that we should all stand by our opinions but I’m worried about the possibility of a world where noone can get by in life without their opinions being judged, and decisions being made on the basis of them.

Out of interest I googled myself. Nothing particularly worrying comes up fortunately. Just two rate this teacher sites, Camerons blog, a genealogy site and a photo of me from a play I did years ago. My blog doesn’t feature until page four and we all know that noone makes it past the first page of google.