Short Abstract

The aim of my talk is to go against the negative trend that currently prevails in the philosophical literature concerning the value of sharing personal information on social media. Both Anita Allen (2012) and Carissa Véliz (2023) argue against sharing personal information for prudential and moral reasons. Allen goes so far as to defend the claim that we have a duty not to share or a duty to protect our privacy, because we thereby protect our well-being as well as the well-being of the people around us. While this negative trend is certainly justified and understandable to some extent, it is, I believe, too one-sided and should be completed with the neglected positive aspects of sharing. The question that I want to answer is Why share personal information? Do we have any strong reasons for sharing? My main claim is that we have strong prudential, moral and epistemic reasons to share personal information on platforms such as TikTok and Instagram. The idea is that we can help ourselves as well as others by sharing and we can distribute knowledge or raise awareness for morally significant phenomena.