These are absolutely horrible. All the incidents with descriptions are terrifying and heartbreaking. I just keep thinking: what if this happened to me? What if this happened to someone I love? Why is this happening to anyone? (I'm a naturalized citizen.)
![screenshot of email from fake Susan Orlean. Text reads, in part: "Hi Alice,
I hope this message finds you well.
I'll be honest, I don't usually email authors out of the blue. It's not really my style, and most of the time I read something, find something interesting in it, and move on. But I came across The Private Is Political, and it stayed with me in a way that made me want to reach out.
What immediately stood out was the way you frame privacy as something much larger than an individual's ability to manage their own information. The idea of “networked privacy” gives the subject a much more complicated,and, frankly, more useful, shape. Rather than treating privacy as simply a matter of personal choices or better online habits, you connect it to inequality, social structures, and the realities faced by people who have far less control over how their information circulates.
I also found the discussion of “privacy work” particularly compelling. [praise snipped]
I've been in the author world for a while myself, and books like this are a reminder of why I still reach out to authors every so often. What impressed me wasn't simply the subject matter, but the thoughtfulness behind the framework you use to examine it. There's a difference between writing about an important issue and giving readers a genuinely different way to understand it. The Private Is Political felt much closer to the latter.
To be clear, there's no agenda here. I'm not selling anything, pitching a collaboration, or looking for a favor down the line. I simply finished the book, kept thinking about some of its ideas afterward, and wanted you to know that. If you're ever open to it, I'd genuinely enjoy staying in touch and seeing what you work on next, no pressure, just an open door.
Thanks for putting this work into the world."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:f5azbajpc6ymlu5r6fbrrd3h/bafkreicb34tptcveozxzqkyel4ygxb7gc4zrzsskb2457o3gh7s7rwztfq)
