Just what do you mean by personal?


Some people have no qualms about exposing themselves on the web. They seem not to feel any fear toward making what would ordinarily be considered intimate information about themselves accessible to anyone. Although in the aftermath of September 11 many individuals made changes in their sites, removing information that they thought might (in some way I'm not sure I understand) make them more accessible to some sort of attack, I'm not aware of any reports on changes that took place in exhibitionist personal sites. In addition, I don't know of any studies that have checked whether the owners of sites of this sort made changes in their sites as a result of well-publicized internet-related rapes or murders (and reports of this sort seem to appear at an almost predictable pace). There may well be information of this sort available, but I think it's a fair guess that owners of sites of this sort felt less threatened by the September 11 attacks than did the owners of more "traditional" personal sites. I don't know why this might be, but I'm willing to venture a guess that's connected neither to the internet, nor to the fear of terrorism. It seems to me that people who feel comfortable exposing themselves (exhibitionistically) on a web site have, in some way, already dealt with questions of what might happen to them, and made decisions about how they want to act. The events of September 11, no matter how frightening, are not really personally threatening to them.



Go to: They've got a little list.