Weekend Arena - Online Friendship Does Not Imply Invasion Of Privacy

Ngozi the man with a woman's hips has landed with his well of wisdom!!!

The cyberspace has united humanity across creed and colour. Every distance, every person is just a click away, like tech geeks posit. The ease with which this is done has however left the privacy of everyone susceptible. That is why in the digital world of today, privacy is one of the biggest issues. It is so paramount to tech creators that they made provisions to seek our consent to perform whatever task on our computers or mobile devices. The word, ‘Allow’ and ‘Deny’ are recurring whenever we are online performing any task. This confirms how much they value everyone’s privacy.



While this subsists, many people do not realise, or are simply indifferent to the fact that there should be limits to our level of interactions online. This has become pertinent, following a viral online story earlier in the week, about a newly married woman, being stalked by admirers, not just on her social media timeline but in her inbox…with video calls! Unsolicited video calls. The lady was recently in the arms of her husband one late evening when suddenly a video call came in via Messenger. Her husband did not mind those flirtatious comments on her posts, but could not help wondering what a stranger could be doing in his wife’s inbox via video calls.


Putting aside the ideals that should follow when anyone is contacting someone’s spouse, there should be ethics, unwritten codes embedded in our skulls about how to communicate with one another, especially when we hardly know them apart from the fact that we are ‘friends’ online. We can loosely call this the ‘digital space etiquettes’. It should be imbibed by all of us the same way a child learns not to talk while eating… the same way the typical Nigerian politician understands not to talk when he is ‘on the dining table’.

It is absolutely wrong to place a video call across to a stranger without seeking his or her consent. Although video calls are designed to make interactions more humanly, they are suitable for arranged and intimate discussions. That someone has become your friend on a social media platform does not qualify you as ‘intimate’, unless there are some other connections linking both of you prior to the online friendship. Inboxes are designed as private sites and should be kept so. So many new contacts online are fond of sliding into one’s inbox to chat with such frivolous lines as ‘how was your night?’, forgetting that inboxes are like bedrooms and sliding into them, is comparable to a stranger, veering off the road, into not just a house, but one’s bedroom. This habit should be avoided like a plague.

Some people may be enjoying it, but it is unethical, beyond every stretch of imagination to share porn videos or images (of yourself or whoever) on timelines or inboxes of people you scarcely know online. If porn is your forte, you can enjoy it the way you like privately, but do not tag other people when you decide to share them. This action is not different from playing a Naira Marley’s ‘Soapy’, in a bus filled with congregants going for Shiloh. It is unruly that people go out of their ways to deposit such clips in other people’s inboxes. These days, the habit cuts across the sexes. Men and women are involved in the act of taking photos of their privates and sharing them with acquaintances online to stress their sensuality. Aside the risk of being the bait for blackmailers in future, it is obscene and presents an ignoble outlook.


For many individuals, the only way they have to reinforce the fact that they actually called one is to do so severally. This leaves, sometimes, 20 missed calls on phones, when there is no visible emergency. That is unpardonable as a simple text message could convey that message. After two missed calls, the ideal thing to do (when it is not an emergency) is to write a text message and expect the person to get back when he or she is free. A lot of people in this habit are also fond of making midnight calls to strangers. If is it not an emergency or unsolicited, it is ill-mannered to put a call across to someone at 1am. Such exigencies could be initiated with a text message and when the person feels moved by the situation, he would do the needful.

Most people love music. Shakespeare called it the food of the soul. But tastes in music vary according to experiences and moods. That is perhaps why the designers of mobile devices created them to be used with an earpiece, so everyone can listen to what suits him or her. But some people get into public spaces, like a bus, a lift or waiting lobby to blast their downloaded songs or radio. What happens if everyone waiting in that lobby decides to pull out his or her phone to play whatever?

Ngozi you just hit the nail on the head....people keep calling me on video calls or on whatsapp and some even at midnight oh and they are not even saved on my phone and when i tell them it is wrong,they act surprised....Thank you for this piece!!!