Opinion: Justin Bieber deserves his privacy, too
Superstar Justin Bieber may have a lot to apologize for, but he shouldn鈥檛 say听 for requesting greater privacy when he's in public.
Yes, this may seem like just another case of a spoiled celebrity whining that there鈥檚 a price to pay for fame. But it鈥檚 a mistake to see things that way. Mr. Bieber makes a genuinely ethical case for how he should be treated, and we all would benefit from respecting its validity.
As is apt for Digital Age declarations, last week Bieber announced he was "done taking pictures with fans" on , giving three reasons defending his听decision. First, he鈥檚 come to feel dehumanized. 鈥淚t has gotten to the point that people won鈥檛 even say hi to me or recognize me as a human, I feel like a zoo animal," he wrote. In the lingo of privacy scholars, his "personhood" is being ignored or diminished.
Second, Bieber rejects the idea that he owes fans pictures because they鈥檝e contributed to his rising wealth and power by buying his products and boosting his clout. Bieber recognizes his life and relationships with others aren鈥檛 reducible to a dollar figure. To think otherwise is to make an existential mistake that resembles the dehumanization problem.
Many people, fans and haters alike, perceive Bieber to be as much of a purchasable commodity as his merchandise; folks assume buying his goods also entails an ownership stake in the artist. (Bieber, however, goes too far, rhetorically, in comparing the situation with听to .)
Comedian Amy Schumer recently testified to the same problem. She changed her approach to being publicly photographed after refusing to take a picture with a random man in the street. He didn鈥檛 want to respect her choice to be left alone and taunted, "."
The third reason Bieber offers is that he鈥檚 trying to set . Without them, he fears he could lose himself in听the desires of the crowd.
This charge is consistent with the claim regularly made by privacy scholars that routine surveillance can create a chilling environment where people are afraid to act in experimental or听nonconformist ways. This is especially important for someone as young as Bieber (he's 22), but it听has no less applicability to older people. We should be able to keep maturing and refining our views until the day we die.
Despite being on firm ethical ground, practically speaking, Bieber鈥檚 demand for privacy听is still an incredibly tall order. For the most part, American citizens 鈥� celebrities or average folks 鈥� simply don鈥檛 have a reasonable expectation of privacy in public. This means Bieber is asking for his fans to voluntarily follow a social contract that he solely authored, one that imposes obligations that go beyond what the law requires.
Since Bieber鈥檚 special status provides him with access to all kinds of opportunities the rest of us aren鈥檛 offered, it鈥檚 easy to see how this one-sided appeal would make some feel resentful.
The problem is made worse by the machinations of the celebrity industrial complex. While Bieber doesn鈥檛 want to be seen as a permanent commodity, the fact is he's perfected the art of becoming one听鈥� at least when he's appearing as a听professional entertainer. He鈥檚 regularly in the news, on the radio, Internet, and social media. Beyond the nonstop manufactured content that鈥檚 pushed out onto the world, there鈥檚 the opportunity for anyone, in principle, to have a dialog with him over social media (when this piece was written, he had and ).
This media Blitzkrieg creates a sense of faux intimacy: a feeling that strangers actually know him inside and out; a feeling that strangers not only have a personal connection with him, but also personal history; and a feeling that Bieber wouldn鈥檛 possibly want distance from strangers who are better off being considered close acquaintances.
In an important sense, then, the changing technological environment is simultaneously the source of Bieber鈥檚 rise to fame (we shouldn鈥檛 forget that he got his start with ) and privacy problems. In addition to the myriad ways fans can bring something connected to Bieber wherever they go (e.g. from home, to car, to school), the ubiquity of their camera-ready, Internet-enabled smartphones has dramatically decreased the cost of Bieber pictures being snapped up.
Paparazzi photo mobs take time and effort to coordinate. Yet, Bieber鈥檚 fans are numerous and everywhere. They don鈥檛 need to plan to photograph him. There鈥檚 plenty of chances for some of them to do it spontaneously, if he鈥檚 ever in plain sight. Bieber himself complains about times changing such that "."
Worrying about the power of portable cameras brings us back full circle to Samuel Warren and Louis Brandeis鈥檚 seminal 1890 article ""听鈥� a piece largely motivated by concern over the democratizing power of Eastman Kodak inventing snap cameras (in 1894) that were designed to spread photography beyond elitist professionals to a mass audience.
But what we鈥檙e living though now is more than the next chapter in the democratization of surveillance and publication tools. Our prevailing acceptance听of taking and posting selfies everywhere 鈥� a practice that, itself, emulates听celebrity culture 鈥� has baked听a certain amount of photographic entitlement into our culture. is taking place. It鈥檚 becoming harder and harder to appreciate why we ought to refrain from using the hyper-efficient, super easy to use click and post buttons. 听 听 听 听听听
While celebrities have earned their place as public interest stories, it鈥檚 a mistake to insist they have forfeited their autonomy entirely 鈥� including the reasonable desire to resist having the public believe that they own them and are permitted to make interfering demands.
Privacy has value because it protects autonomy 鈥� the dignity of being a person, and the situated freedom within an environment to exercise our will. Bieber, like the rest of us, is not a commodity. He has a right to insist on not being bought, sold, or rented. The moment we start deciding who deserves autonomy and who has to be condemned to be a permanent, all-context commodity is the moment we start giving up on viewing privacy as something fundamental for everyone in a democracy.
Bieber may have chosen to sell his soul in some parts of his life, but he still deserves to have his humanity respected in others.
听is a professor of philosophy at听. Follow him on Twitter听.
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