On this day in 1941, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt proclaimed today National Bill of Rights Day, on the 150th anniversary of the introduction of the document by James Madison to the First U.S. Congress.

Did we even need a Bill of Rights?

So, why do we even need a Bill of Rights?  Didn’t we have a Constitution signed just a few years before 1791? Well, even when the Constitution was being written, there were a number of divisions with regard to whether or not it should explicitly list what our rights were.  To keep everyone in line, a proper listing of rights was left out of our founding document, in part to cobble together enough signatures on it.

The Cons

Alexander Hamilton stated a concern that by listing our rights, we were actually limiting them.  What happened to those rights that someone failed to list?  Were they now lost?  Did we only have those rights that were in the document?  Hamilton’s argument was that what was being created was typical in a relationship between royalty and their subjects.  In those situations, a Bill of Rights was often abused by those that held the power to define them.  Hamilton wanted an approach more like that of Britain’s Common Law, which drew from Natural Law, or the belief that we had rights inherent to our very presence in the World, and those rights were equal in stature to all others alive today.

The Pros

On the other side of the argument was Thomas Jefferson, who stated “Half a loaf is better than no bread.  If we cannot secure all of our rights, let us secure what we can.”  Jefferson and others were deeply concerned that a strong, emerging centralized government would work quickly to limit and/or remove the rights of all Americans.  Jefferson viewed the then-strong Presidency as possibly becoming akin to a Kingship.  Those rights secured now were less likely to be taken from us later…

Covering rights not documented

After much debate and subsequent modification, the Bill of Rights was brought forth, providing ten proposed Amendments to our Constitution, each one securing and defining the limits to our fundamental rights.  To appease those that agreed with Hamilton, the 9th Amendment stated “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”  Basically, if it’s not in our founding documents, it’s still a right unless stated otherwise.

Facebook and Social Media rights

On Dec. 9th of this year, Facebook changed its privacy settings for all of its users.  Founder Mark Zuckerberg posted a message on Facebook letting us all know that he would be opening up his private page for all to see and comment on.  That was nice of him.  The second thing he authorized, however, caused quite a stir.  Facebook, according to Zuckerberg, would also be opening up our status updates and photo albums for all to see too, unless we logged in, went back into our privacy settings, and reset them.

As I type this, millions of Facebook users with protected content who have not been informed, or have not logged into Facebook for awhile, may be sharing their content with everybody.  Hope all of those busy politicians, supermodels, actors, police officers, military members and so forth have the time and remember their logins…

A not-so-public change (and not addressed in Mr. Zuckerberg’s letter at all) was a privacy setting related to Google and other search engines farming your public content.  If your content is public, search engines can farm your content as of 2007.  But apparently, a new check box disallowing this sort of behavior has made its appearance in your privacy settings, but defaulted to allow it.  Yes, that’s right.  The ability for Google to deliver your content to everyone well outside of your friends network was kept defaulted to “Yeah, I’m okay with that.”  To remove this, you’ll have to go into your Privacy Settings and click on the Search icon.  Then click to uncheck the Allow box.

After logging in and changing your settings, you will find far greater granularity in defining who gets to see what content, but it was a heck of a way to introduce these new settings….

So what’s next?

As social media continues to grow in popularity, and advertisers begin to smack their chops over peeking at what we say to each other, you will likely begin to see what you say being offered up to mass marketers.  Some of the handing over will be done very publicly, and you will have to make a choice about what to do with your privacy settings.  But I do worry about what might get shared without my knowing, as yet another check box makes its emergence under dark of night, with a setting allowing for what I say to you to be whispered far and wide…

So while I am still scaring you, I have devised a simple Bill of Rights for the citizen living within the borders of Social Media.  Read them and let me know how they should be modified.  Adopt them if you’d like and use them when determining whether or not you are going to create another account somewhere online.  Copy and send them to your social media website provider and ask if they comply with them, and how.  Retweet or share them as far and wide as you’d like…

The Social Media Citizen’s Bill of Rights

First Right - We have a right to social media sites that are not configured in a way to favor one religious viewpoint, sexual orientation, gender or race over another.  We are to be allowed equal access in the ability to share our lives and exchange our viewpoints.

Second Right - We have a right to social media sites that do not prohibit or limit our freedom of speech or ability to share multimedia information openly (or privately) with others.  In order to protect us from material we deem offensive, social media sites shall provide the ability for us to limit, hide or block another user’s content.  Social media sites are to ensure they do not create features that ultimately circumvent the limiting of viewing of our content.

Third Right - We have a right to social media sites that allow any news or governmental source to share and disseminate multimedia information to us in an equally fair and timely manner, without censorship or the provision of favor to any particular viewpoint or bias.

Fourth Right -We have a right to social media sites that list, in an accessible location, the rules of how we are to use the site, as well as how the operators of the site shall address violations of these rules.  Social media sites shall provide an easy-to-use method for us to petition the site in order to redress grievances or rule violations.

Fifth Right - We have a right to social media sites that provide to its users the ability to protect the privacy of their content, and to limit its viewing by others to the maximum extent possible. With this regard, our right to set, maintain and adjust the personal privacy settings for our multimedia content, shall not be infringed.  Changes to any of our personal privacy settings shall not occur without timely public announcement and our express individual permission.  All design modifications should endeavor to default in such a way as to leave in place existing privacy settings.

Sixth Right - We have a right to social media sites that will never enter into agreements with private or governmental entities in a manner which circumvents our personal privacy settings, without our express permission (except via legal means in pursuit of criminal justice.)  Legal circumventing of our content shall not be performed without a warrant showing  probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and shall describe in detail the content to be searched.

Spread these rights far and wide, to let people know they can ask that the natural laws of social media allow us to expect certain unalienable rights to privacy and protection from its providers, simply by creating an account and showing up in the virtual world, too!

-Steve Woods