Can We Learn About Privacy From Porn Stars? | Hacker News Reader

Can We Learn About Privacy From Porn Stars?

nytimes.com

34 pointsdeepblueocean15 comments

There was nothing to learn here. Just a piece about porn stars being recognized in public. I was reading this article thinking that it has something to do with the legality of online personas, however, it had no point. I don't know why this is even related to tech or online privacy.

What in the title made you think this is about legal matters and not about the experience of a porn-star?

I'd rather read this essay than some opinion of the "legality of online personas". I found it interesting, easy to read and actually thought-provoking.

The title is "Can We Learn About Privacy From Porn Stars?". We, by definition, are not porn stars. We are taken to be the masses of regular folk. The article had almost no thesis points, however, it did have a theme. The theme was the personal experience of a famous person. I assumed that the article had something to do with privacy online. It does not. It has to do with notoriety of famous people.

I think it was one part aimed at Belle Knox saying "grow up, your real identity was never safe anyway" and another part aimed at the public saying, "grow up, people have more than one identity".

We have different identities in different contexts, as in online forums (ahem), and ideally the public would respect those different contexts, even when it comes to famous people.

(That seems unlikely to me, though, since seeing a famous person is indeed a thrill (heck even famous people report being thrilled at meeting other famous people for the first time, which I tend to believe.))

That's exactly my point. A famous person has different rules and different problems in society. I don't think this article is meaningful or even about privacy in society. It is merely about privacy for people who live as entertainers. It has no points, only an observation or two. I find the notion ridiculous since the article didn't even attempt to make a connection between regular folk and their privacy concerns. It is about people with fake names getting recognized because they are making tons of money doing pornography and then complaining about awkward experiences associated. It has almost nothing to do with tech, online privacy expectations for regular people, or online privacy in general.

I think it's more about how the public at large tends to take your persona and assume that it is the entirety of your person. If I just used your posts in this thread to form a viewpoint as to the type of person you are and then treated you in public based off of the viewpoint I formed in my head, that would be a bit off, wouldn't you agree?

A lot of points the article makes seem pretty relevant to me beyond porn and into the wider world of the internet, particularly in light of the recent Satoshi fever.

How does one become a " <insert industry here> star"?

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