First published at battleofideas.org.uk - Battle in Print on 13th October 2009

Introduction: The fuzzy boundary of privacy

What is private? Is it the opposite of public? What is public? Even if you’re confident you can answer these questions, it is still difficult to say what information should be public and what should be private. When so much data about shopping habits, internet searches, health and emotional well-being is held by both huge commercial concerns and the state, or is self-published on social networking sites and blogs, the dividing line between privacy and publicity is fuzzy.

The following is an extract from the book 'The Myth of Racist Kids - anti-racist policy and the regulation of school life' by Adrian Hart.

© of the text, Adrian Hart 2009. First published 2009 isbn 978-0-9561247-2-2. Published by Manifesto Club www.manifestoclub.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Edited by Josie Appleton

A school playground is a mess of exuberant sociability, of running, shouting, falling-out, making-up, showing off, teasing – and there is something deeply wrong when these childish games become a matter for officials and even the police. The idea that three-year-olds can be ‘racist’, and require specialists to train them out of their prejudice, amounts to a notion that we are born sinners and only officialdom can save us.

Question Time was an early Christmas present for the turkey. The public is way better at humiliating Nick Griffin than politicians or playwright museum directors. Jack Straw, Lady Warsi and the other one were compromised by agreeing on tougher immigration controls while Bonnie Greer defaulted to an apolitical “but I know some basic history” mode. While Greer's face was a picture when Griffin talked about a non-violent Ku Klux Klan, the members of the public, the people in the audience having a go, were priceless.

There really is such a thing as a free lunch! The information really does want to be free! Chris Anderson claims that ‘free’ can mean something is not paid for or is unrestricted; and his book has a similarly two-sided character. It’s a pragmatic guide on how to extract business revenue when the effective market price for a digital product is zero, alongside announcing the business model for a 21st century of digital abundance is Free (with an upper-case F).