The problem with your "choice to share" is that you don't make that choice between whether you share that info or not, you make it between whether this data can come back to haunt me or not. It's a type of self-censoring which is an important goal for any party looking to suppress unwanted ideas.
But you are making the choice to share it or not. And despite the claim in the article in the OP about TOS agreements, they are as legally binding as other long pieces of documentation out there, including gaming license agreements, leases, employment agreements, loan agreements, credit card contracts, and more. Laziness is not a valid excuse.
And self-censoring is present even if this weren't the norm, and to a degree I'd say should be the norm. For example, a lot of the trashy comments you see in places like 4chan or reddit - those comments are the type that should be censored in most venues, and even those trashy comments have the effect of censoring dissenting views due to overaggressive expression of views by the posters of the trashy comments. Even a place like here, you have self-censorship occurring in the form of people fearful of making certain comments over the threat of downvoting. I don't think that this is a strong line of argument.
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You mean like how AOL anonymized their data? http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2009/09/your-secrets-live...
The problem with your "choice to share" is that you don't make that choice between whether you share that info or not, you make it between whether this data can come back to haunt me or not. It's a type of self-censoring which is an important goal for any party looking to suppress unwanted ideas.
But you are making the choice to share it or not. And despite the claim in the article in the OP about TOS agreements, they are as legally binding as other long pieces of documentation out there, including gaming license agreements, leases, employment agreements, loan agreements, credit card contracts, and more. Laziness is not a valid excuse.
And self-censoring is present even if this weren't the norm, and to a degree I'd say should be the norm. For example, a lot of the trashy comments you see in places like 4chan or reddit - those comments are the type that should be censored in most venues, and even those trashy comments have the effect of censoring dissenting views due to overaggressive expression of views by the posters of the trashy comments. Even a place like here, you have self-censorship occurring in the form of people fearful of making certain comments over the threat of downvoting. I don't think that this is a strong line of argument.