Stage Ahoy! Deconstruction of the 'Drunken Pirate' Case in the Light of Impression Management

Abstract

Information on the Internet can sometimes damage people by interfering with offline life. A high-school teacher-in-training experienced this firsthand when a photo with the caption "drunken pirate" and a message on her MySpace website led to the end of her career as a teacher. This case received a lot of media attention and is used in academic debate as illustrating the need for a "right to be forgotten". The question is how and to what extent the Internet contributed to the fact that the teacher-in-training's information ended up with the wrong audience. The problems in this case did not arise due to any memory related capacities of the Internet or the Internet being a place where information can be easily copied and reproduced. The problems arose because audience segregation on the Internet is a difficult task.

Keywords: privacy, impression management, Internet, 'drunken pirate', case