NYT, @mathewi and @jbenton talk about mugshots today. Here’s my long view from years in college media.
The story about mugshots by David Segal that NYT published over the weekend is pretty fascinating. The reactions in the NYT story to these mugshot websites aren’t too surprising though.
When I was working in college media, I dealt with a few situations where either people external to the college or college students sent in requests to have stories taken down or have their names expunged from a story. Our policy was always the same, if we stand behind what we write than we don’t take these things down. I’m sure similar cases are dealt with by editors everywhere.
The arguments for taking down stories involving college students are pretty similar to those dealing with mug shots. They were youthful. It was a brief foolish indiscretion. There was no actual legal issue, so why should they have to be punished forever? Shouldn’t college media take new considerations now that everything they write exists on Google forever? Isn’t the university a place to safely make mistakes?
Even though I no longer directly work in college media, I still see these questions pop up in the student publications I pay attention to and the organizations that cover them.
When I read that Google had downgraded the mugshot sites, I was concerned. Mathew Ingram writes about why this is troubling, and he is absolutely right. Google is our ultimate filter, and their decision to de-prioritize these sites is essentially a statement on their right to exist. Regardless of a mugshot website’s mercenary attitude, that information is public and removing it from the top of searches, even though there is a greater user interest, is as worrisome as the legal moves by government or the monetary ones by MasterCard.
I’m going to say the same thing now that I said when we talked about this in the college newsroom.
In 20 to 30 years we’ll have the first presidential candidate who was on Facebook before they were in high school. Probably more than one. I will guarantee that they have said something offensive on Twitter, posted a foolish picture to Facebook, and Instagram-ed themselves drinking underage.
Once we get past the initial shock of our lives being public, society is going to bend rather than break. Doing something stupid and having it end up on the internet will become social acceptable before my generation hits middle age.
It won’t be because MasterCard or Google suppress those things.
It will be because everyone will have had their 15 minutes of internet fame and been an idiot for at least 10 of them.
We’ll have no choice but to forgive and ignore public indiscretions, because if we don’t do it for others, who will do it for us?
As we slowly enter the life-long panopticon that comes from significant adaptation of social media and maturation of easy online publishing and archiving tools, things may initially be tough. They won’t be forever. We have to hold off from choosing suppression because the immediate good that will come from that won’t be nearly as much as the eventual good that comes from freedom.
Between now and the first presidential red cup Facebook photo, some people may get hurt. That’s what happens when we grow and learn. The solution isn’t to pay skeezymugshots.com or wait for Google to drop a site from the front page. Instead, use the same tools to write your own story. Post nice photos, write about the good things you do and the good person you are. Be honest.
Everything will be ok.
