Internet safety

September 27, 2014

This is a screenshot of part of the first page of Yahoo search results for the search term "Hillary Clinton":

I haven't known what to write about this picture.  I said, several weeks ago, that Leonardo DiCaprio isn't synonomous with environmentalism.

I never try to make the search results for my name look like anything in particular.  Last year, I sent a few reports about some of the hate-blogs that people had created about me and that show up from searches of my name to the federal agency that is supposed to deal with cybercrime.  That seemed to do nothing.

My assumption is, and always was, that people like celebrities and established politicians have a lot more control over how they are presented on the Web than I do about myself, or than most people do.  

I don't want to have to do searches of my name every day to try to figure out how someone who has never heard of me before and who does a search of my name would think of me after having done that search.  I am sure that most people would consider irksome, at the least, having to worry all the time about their Internet image.  I am the only person whose words about me are something I can control.  

The Internet should be a safer place than it is.

Copyright, with noted exceptions, L. Kochman, September 27, 2014 @ 6:28 p.m.