????有些人擁護隱私，而杰夫?賈維斯卻提倡公開。在《公共部分：數字時代的分享如何改善我們的工作和生活方式》一書中，這位見解獨特的網絡樂觀主義者聲稱，如果我們太癡迷于保護網絡上的個人信息，那么我們將錯失公開這些信息所帶來的重大機遇。

????他的這個觀點令人耳目一新。在網絡隱私這個話題上，人們常常都覺得，網絡——尤其是像Facebook這種包含大量個人信息的社交網站——可能會危害我們的子孫，破壞我們的社會。在有關網絡隱私的討論中，常常包括了奧威爾式（Orwellian）的憂慮：擔心受到政府監控。我們不希望自己的網站瀏覽記錄被用來幫助廣告商追蹤我們在互聯網上的行蹤。我們也不想讓盜賊知道我們是否在家。毫無疑問，我們渴望獲得信息時代所帶來的好處，但如果有關我們生活的信息以數字形式被別人收集利用就太可怕了。

????相比之下，賈維斯卻以輕松的心態來看待這些問題。但要想打敗隱私擁護者，首先必須定義什么是“隱私”。這可能并不像想象的那樣簡單。Facebook創始人馬克?扎克伯格試圖將人們對隱私的渴望改造成為對控制個人數字信息的渴望。他聲稱，人們渴望分享信息，但希望由自己來決定誰可以瀏覽、利用這些信息。賈維斯說，這種定義太過簡單化。隱私是非常復雜的東西，畢竟在生活中我們與他人有著千絲萬縷的聯系。我們如何確定哪些是自己本人的信息？如果我分享的信息牽涉到其他人，那么由誰來控制呢？

????賈維斯寫到，或許我們看待問題的角度剛好顛倒了。他闡述了控制信息類別（永不結束的打地鼠游戲）和控制信息如何被使用（個人和機構在獲取他人信息時所作出的選擇）之間的區別。這就是他對“公開”的定義。他隨后又列出了許多幫助人們思考應該如何尊重他人信息的道德規范，并且提出了某些具體的指導（如：不要竊取信息）和更籠統的見解（如：動機很重要）。值得指出的是，他提出的很多規則與現實生活中父母們教給我們的文化規范大同小異，核心都是：不要泄露別人的秘密。

????賈維斯本人有點像個暴露狂。在公開哪些個人信息的問題上，他所作出的某些選擇簡直令人匪夷所思。比如，他在罹患前列腺癌期間曾在博客上事無巨細地描述了整個康復過程。但是，他也因此收獲了朋友和陌生人的大量支持，他們同情他、鼓勵他，還為他推薦良醫。這個故事最令人感興趣之處在于他對此所做的解釋，說明如何以及何時分享這些信息而不致牽涉到其他人（比如他的子女或妻子）。適當的透明并不是指隨時隨地把所有事情都告訴給所有人聽，而是指在公開信息的問題上不斷作出明智的判斷。

????《公共部分》這本書提醒我們，每當新技術（比如日益發展的網絡社交能力或者移動式印刷機）出現的時候，人們最初的反應常常都是恐懼。賈維斯指出，最早期的書籍錯漏百出。這些印刷錯誤可能會在極短時間內廣泛傳播，對社會造成更大的危害。1631年，印刷商們曾因為意外漏印了《圣經》第七戒中的“不”這個關鍵字而被處以罰金。

????幸好，我們沒有揪著這些印刷錯誤不放——此后，信息通過印刷書籍和文件的大規模傳播已經從根本上重塑了這個世界。賈維斯大概會把這種推論應用于社交網站身上。世界是復雜的，我們在數字時代里留在身后的遺跡正以新的方式將我們暴露于人前。我們在制定社會規范、處理網絡信息的過程中肯定會犯下許多錯誤。賈維斯的這本書并不是呼吁人們在Twitter上公布自己早餐吃了些什么，或者在博客上公布所在的公司的財務狀況，而是提供了一種現場指導，使人們能夠以樂觀而不是恐懼的心態來看待網絡這種新技術。

????譯者：千牛絮

????Privacy has its advocates. Jeff Jarvis has made himself an advocate for publicness. In Public Parts: How Sharing in the Digital Age Improves the Way we Work and Live, the original Internet optimist argues that if we become too obsessed with guarding all personal information on the 'Net, we'll miss important opportunities that come with making information available.

????It's a refreshing take on a topic often covered by people who feel that the Internet -- and in particular, social networks like Facebook and the vast amount of personal data that flow within them -- threatens to imperil our children and undermine our society. Discussions about Internet privacy often include Orwellian allusions to fear: We're concerned about government surveillance. We don't want targeted cookies to help advertisers track our Internet wanderings. We don't want robbers to know when we're not home. Sure, we want the benefits that come with the information age, but all this data about our lives that is accruing digitally? Creepy.

? ?By contrast, Jarvis approaches these questions with delight. But before he can take down the privacy advocates, he has to offer a definition for the term. That's not as easy as you might think. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has tried to recast the desire for privacy as a desire for control over our digital identities. He argues that people want to share information, but we want to determine who gets to see and use it. Jarvis says this definition is too tidy. Privacy is much messier. We live in relationship with other people, after all. How do we even define what qualifies as our own information? If I share information that implicates you, who gets to control that?

????Maybe we are looking through the wrong end of the telescope, Jarvis writes. He makes the distinction between regulating the type of information that is revealed -- a never-ending game of Whac-a-Mole -- and regulating how it is used -- the choices people and institutions make when they are privy to someone else's information. This is his definition of "publicness." He then lays out a body of ethics to help think about how to respect other peoples' data, offering some specific directives (Don't steal information) and also more general thoughts (Motive matters). It's worth noting that many of these rules are not so dissimilar from the cultural norms our parents taught us for how to regard privacy in the offline world: Don't tell other peoples' secrets.

????Jarvis himself is a bit of an exhibitionist. It's hard to imagine making some of the choices he does about what personal information enters the public domain. When he got prostate cancer, for example, he used his blog to describe his recovery process in great detail. But in return, he gathered a good deal of support from friends and strangers who empathized, recommended doctors and cheered him on. The most interesting note to this story is his explanation for how and when to share that information so it didn't expose others in his life -- his kids or his wife, for example. Radical transparency is not one decision to tell everyone everything all the time, but rather a series of smart judgment calls.

????At best, Public Parts is a reminder that when any new technology is introduced -- be it the growing social capabilities of the Internet or the movable type of the printing press -- the immediate reaction is often fear. Jarvis points out that the earliest books were riddled with errors. These printed mistakes could suddenly spread widely and therefore they were considered to be more dangerous to society. In 1631, printers were fined for publishing a copy of the Bible that accidentally omitted the crucial word "not" from the Seventh Commandment.

????It's a good thing we didn't dwell too long on the typos -- the mass distribution of information through printed books and papers has fundamentally reshaped the world. Jarvis would apply this reasoning to the social web. The world is complicated -- and our dynamic digital fossils trail along behind us, exposing us in new ways. We will make a lot of mistakes as we develop social norms around how to treat information online. His book is not so much a rallying cry for tweeting your breakfast choices and blogging your company financials as it is a field guide for how to navigate this new technology with optimism rather than fear.