which right do you want protect?

In today’s post, I want to show my own experience I had a week ago. And I will be really glad if you readers give your idea about this fact and question.

DO YOU THINK PUTTING PHOTOGRAPHS OF WARFARE, FAMINE OR OTHER TRAGEDIES ON SNS (social network services) IS VIOLATING THE TAKEN PERSON’S PRIVICY RIGHTS?

A week ago, on a social network service, I found a friend of mine writing a following statement.

“It’s about a photograph of warfare everyone is talking about these days. The person who took and put it on SNS probably had a purpose. But where is the kid’s human right and privacy? He (or she, I’m not sure) is not on exhibition. What happens to his/hers personal rights when his/hers photograph is retwetted in all over the world, to unknown people?”

It shocked me a lot reading this post because what my friend said was totally true. And I realized this post opened a door for me to see the world from a different angle.

Indeed, when you put photograph of somebody without the person’s permission, it is seriously violating the privacy of the person. The friend of mine told me, “If the photograph’s person was me, I will be embarrassed and don’t feel well about the fact my photograph is going around all over the world”.

I came to a conclusion after a consideration of this opinion and her first post that what she said was totally right. I cannot deny it. Still, I also understand what people who put these photographs on SNS thought and hoped. I build an idea about the power of Photographs in my first blog entry of this semester. I showed how the photographer think and expect from the photographs. In the second post, I showed how the photographs could be used to change and contribute for this world. People who put these photographs probably (from my perspective) trust the power of photographs and the possibility of it. There are happening a lot of tragedies in this world, which we do not know well. From my point of view, these people putting those photographs on SNS, and who retweet or share it, are willing to make people aware about what is happening in the other side of the world           and think about that. Only after knowing what is going on in this world, people can make a decision to contribute to help those people or situations.

Additionally, I also thought about the feelings the person who was taken on the photograph could have. Did he/she really care about his/her own privacy when his/her family’s life and his/her own life are in a danger? This was a questions came on my mind. When you are in these situations that you do not know where is a safe place, or you do not know when you will die (now? After a second? Am I alive tomorrow?), you probably pray, “Whoever, please save us”. What do you think?

Indeed, the action to put photograph on SNS and share it to unknown people all over the world can violate the person’s privacy. But before that, we have to think about the fact that the fundamental rights of human beings is violated, too. For my perspective, these people who share or put photographs on SNS, choose to violate the privacy right in order to protect the fundamental humans rights of the person who was taken a photograph.

These were my idea, and what we discussed about after I read my friend’s post. Since this was really powerful experience for me, and it is related to my blog post, I thought to share it here. I am glad if my friend and my idea can open you a door of a new perspective.