Blog Post #4: Privacy

There are lots of things magazines I pretend not to subscribe to tell me about dating sites. I should never give out too much personal information too soon. I should do a search on someone I talk to who seems to be "too good to be true" because he probably is. I should run like the wind if someone I'm chatting with asks for money, even if he makes it sounds legitimate. The list goes on and on, and usually ends with the clarification that some people on dating websites are actually real and we shouldn't let all of theses risks deter us from true love. What? All of that is insane enough, but when you throw in strangers viewing my personal messages I don't even know if I want a sittercity.com account anymore. The internet is a scary place.

So while it should shock me to learn that OKCupid is appointing random moderators to comb through users' private information, sadly, it doesn't. The dating website is recruiting members--just regular old users trying to find love--to take a leadership role and try to weed out some of the scammers I already mentioned. That doesn't sound too bad until you find out that these moderators have access to users' private messages, photos, and more, all without the user knowing it. If possible, it gets worse from here: mods can repost the information they gather publicly without any repercussions and can ban or flag users they simply don't like who have done nothing against website policy.


And guess what? While this is all totally creepy and sounds like a Lifetime movie I watched for a total of five minutes while holed up in a hospital room a few months ago, it is all totally legal. It never states on the site that this won't happen, and as for the reposting of private exchanges, OKCupid says that it doesn't approve of that but can't help what the moderators do with their power.

This is one of the worst excuses I have ever heard. If the site wants its moderators to act in a certain way then it should make actual rules instead of tisk-tisking when the news breaks. OKCupid and sites like it are responsible for their users' trust and personal information. In this case, the site isn't even attempting to hide its shady policies in disclaimers we all just check "I Agree" for upon registration without reading. They're leaving it out completely. 

So normally this is the place where I would sigh and admit that the user holds some responsibility as well. I would argue that these sites know that no one reads all of that legalese. I would explain how many internet users simply don't know where to find privacy agreements or that they have anything to worry about in the first place. I would say all of these things, but instead all I can say is that OKCupid has done its users an even greater disservice in leaving this all secret altogether. 

People expect privacy. They expect that there are laws protecting them and their messages and information from prying eyes. There just aren't. It is up to users and site managers, and in this case, the site never said anything was private so nothing is. It is opposite to the assumptions most people make about their privacy, sort of an innocent until proven guilty thing. Private until notified otherwise.

This is disgusting, and although the site has changed the amount of information its mods can see, it is simply not good enough. When users sign up they are signing their privacy away without ever knowing it.