Ultimately, because online environments work glocally, educating the public about
the “right to be let alone” (Warren and Brandeis 1890, p. 195) online is an important
part of crafting a regulatory solution that ensures privacy becomes a public good for
global users. Education, in the formof technological literacy, can then help individuals
practice this autonomy fluently in digital environments. As individuals use platforms
that blur private and public, it is essential that they retain the right to specify
boundaries when necessary. Networked environments that thrive on shareability
present both opportunities for the self and challenges for performative autonomy
online. Individuals are required to become more conscious editors of their own
behavior online. Editorial skills, and the ability to redact, previously associated with
specific professions only, become the property of individual citizens and part of a
survival toolkit online (Hartley 2000). The idea is not entirely new for socially
motivated beings. We frequently edit our social behavior and the information we
share with others as we interact with a variety of audiences: friends, work colleagues,
acquaintances, and strangers.We even have phrases, norms and acronyms that signal
to others when too much information has been shared in an inappropriate context.