Privacy 2.0: We Are All Celebrities Now

Privacy is an endangered species. Celebrities and politicians make their livelihoods by eschewing privacy and seeking full-frontal public attention. They are public figures by choice. But what about the rest of us? In today's Facebooking Twitterverse — with the proliferation of cellphone cameras, community-building websites, photo-sharing apps and ever-expanding companies dedicated to exposing as much of our lives and predilections as possible — we are all becoming public figures whether we want to be or not. And it's changing the rules we live by.

"People, now more than ever, have become increasingly uninhibited with the information they share via online social media," says David Hector Montes, former outreach director of the Pro Bono Research Group at the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University. "As a result, private citizens have large audiences to share information with, and public figures are more accessible." The prevalence of social media, Montes says, "has created a culture of over-sharing." And this "is blurring the lines between who is a public figure and who is not."