PART ONE
Helen Nissenbaum’s Contextual Privacy theory emphasizes that the privacy right is about a right to transfer personal information properly. And the judgment of privacy depends on the context. This means that people can not simply use space or location to define privacy. We can have a privacy right in a public place, also even when we at home, such a location thought to be private, some information can be public because of a specific context.
The first item I’d like to share is chatting records. Nowadays we use Wechat, QQ, Weibo and many social media. These tools make us chat with others anytime and anywhere( if the internet is allowed). So as people chat with their friends they can say anything they want, like secrets, comments, opinions and so on. In this context, you think that you are having a private conversation and are appropriate to share something. However, we should notice that chatting records are not personal. The people who you are talking to also have those records. They may share with other people who you are familiar with or not, or they may post on social media for good or bad purposes. Once these records being posted or sent to others, they cannot be private anymore.
And I also think the two principles, appropriateness and distribution, can be achieved or broke at the same time. Taking chatting records like an example, when you talk to your friend about someone’s gossip which you don’t know if it’s real, then as you share with your friend you add your comment with exaggerated statements which makes her feel interesting. Then she sends your chatting records to another friend.
During this process, the moment you share X’s gossip with your friend, in X’s concept, what you’ re talking about actually is X’s thing. So your behavior breaks X’s distribution. But in your concept, you take it as a topic to communicate and you think it’s appropriate to discuss. This means you achieve your appropriateness while breaking X’s distribution. Then your friend shares your chatting records about this on social media, your comments on X’s gossip may be also seen by X, who you don’t want to know. At that time, you will think your appropriateness is broken and your privacy has been violated.
The second one can be personal information. When people walk on the street, they are sometimes asked to do an interview or a survey by some enthusiastic salesmen. They want to be polite so they accept it and fill in the table with their personal information, like age, name, phone number. Also when students at school, when workers at the workplace, they are always asked to fill in some tables, just like a task which they can’t refuse. So in these contexts, people think it’s fine to write down their personal information (they are willing to or they have to).
But later on, people begin to receive many ads and phone fraud. Even when they stay at home, they still feel uncomfortable. Because they find their personal information is leaked and they can do nothing to stop it. So this means in the original context, something it’s not considered as private Information. But once it is transformed into another context, it may become the privacy you cherish.
PART TWO
My point is that different cultures lead to different perceptions of privacy. However, I want to emphasize that different perceptions of privacy do not represent how much people value privacy, but rather indicate the different cultures that make the East and the West focus differently on privacy.
We all know that the East advocates collectivism, while the West advocates individualism. They are different cultures. The expression of Chinese privacy is group privacy. Although China’s cultural values have been influenced by the West since the reform and opening-up which makes many people are calling for individual freedom and space to maintain personal privacy, collectivism is still the mainstream value.
Group privacy is reflected in the use of walls to protect families and groups. It means that everyone not just contains a personal value, you are also implicated in-group values, including your family, your circle of friends, your workgroup. So I assume that collectivism’ s privacy is more complex than individualism.
The East takes every group as individuals.
Among those groups, if your privacy has a conflict with group value, somehow you have to sacrifice. In other words, people are always noticed first because they are in a group, then they are noticed as individuals. For example, there are many groups in school and group members are always together. If someone fits the group value they can join in. Also when you have some secrets which have an impact on the group, you can be kicked out immediately.
And also people always connect with more than one group, they also have to consider different group values. For instance, in the workplace. Two people fall in love but office romance is forbidden. If they don’t want to give up, they have to keep in touch secretly and have to pretend there is nothing happened. Except that they have many problems due to personal relationships at work. Once their relationship is noticed, usually two people will be punished or even lose their jobs. Groups monitor relationships between individuals, even if the relationship is personal privacy. When personal privacy affects the atmosphere of the group, it will be exposed without hesitation.
More specifically, the performance of a workgroup is most important, and the comparison between groups is also based on performance. The performance will be announced, but the operation and division of the group are private. Therefore, once a group’s performance is affected, it is suspected that there are problems with its internal operations. In this case, anything that affects the group, even personal privacy, should be removed.
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