Women and Online Safety

I picked up Lori Andrews's I Know Who You Are and I Saw What You Did, somewhat serendipitously the same afternoon I spent reading one woman's unnerving story of her rapist finding her online. I've written before about the benefits of anonymity online, especially for women, who are particularly targeted and even threatened. It's a good read for those of us tethered to our Facebook or Twitter accounts.

I'm not always careful. I've said enough here that I probably could never run for office (at least not in my home state). It's a hard line to straddle for bloggers -- trying to maintain enough transparency that one's credibility isn't questioned, but not so much that everything is there for the picking. I rarely, if at all, write about my family, to the point that in the past I've had people ask -- nay, demand -- to know more about my life, like it's something their owed simply because they read my blog. I find it interesting that the policies regarding internet transparency were drafted by those with the least to lose.

Another interesting statistic, via the book: younger people are more likely to better guard their personal info than those over forty. Ouch. But also we grew up in an era where the internet was a much smaller, more niche thing, where it never felt like the whole world was watching.