When I was looking through the Digital Harlem website, I was astounded by the maps that showed exactly where a person traveled during that person’s life. In just three red lines, Fuller Long’s entire life is shown. How could such intimate, detailed data be collected? The answer is the case files, especially the Probation Department files, which give a detailed account of every arrested person’s life, right down to their favorite leisurely activities and religious preferences. However, someone attempting to make a similar map of Harlem residents in the 2010’s wouldn’t even have to look that far. Just a quick search of the Facebook archives would achieve the same result without nearly the same amount of effort.
Facebook’s mission is basically to make the world a more open place by uploading any deep, dark details that you may want your peers to know about your life. With all the discussion about online privacy (Facebook’s owning any pictures you post has caused much backlash) it’s interesting to ask weather the residents profiled on the Digital Harlem website would have wanted their entire lives laid out for anyone to see? Just because they are dead does that mean they no longer possess privacy rights? Were their families contacted for permission before the researches put this data into the public forum? Is the changing of a name enough to protect privacy (many of those profiled in Digital Harlem articles have had their names altered)? Unlike Facebook, where users are well aware of the content they are posting (from willingly sharing their location to their daily activities) those profiled had no control over what went in their probation files or who had access to said files.
Digitalharlem.org is literally a directory of whose who in the neighborhood, attempting to give insight into a place that has recently gone through radical change and gentrification. It is interesting to see all the components of a place that has somewhat moved on from a history of debt and turmoil. And although I was initially creeped out by the life maps, is it really any worse than the gory details people are always willingly posted online? We can rest assured that through our social media profiles, people of the future will have a very good idea of who we were, with information provided and edited by the subjects themselves. When we die, our profiles will make for much better obituaries than the traditional newspaper blurbs by friends and family, just as the Digital Harlem site pays homage to those who lived in a world drastically different than the Harlem of today.
Below is a link to Facebook’s mission statement. Aside from what they state, the website itself is a method of polling and data gathering.
https://www.facebook.com/facebook/info