I was cruising the Internet today, and stumbled across a certain site that posts private photos of the young actors in the Harry Potter films. This site began quite a while ago, and focused mainly on seventeen year old actress Emma Watson. Some of you may know that I ran an Emma Watson fan site myself from before Philosopher's Stone was released, until just after Prisoner of Azkaban was released. So, I obviously am somewhat interested in her, especially since she embodies one of my favourite literary characters, Hermione Granger.
What I found on this site today was despicable. Not private pictures this time 'round, not that it's a big deal since they've been posted on gossip sites such as ONTD, which has made them to become somewhat run-of-the-mill, but alleged excerpts from her emails, detailing a very personal time in her life!
Now, there is no proof that the things posted on this website are real, other than the fact that they claim to have been contacted by a very real law firm regarding this matter- mainly the hacking of Emma's alleged Hotmail account.
Whether the excerpts posted on the site are real or not, is not the issue I would like to discuss. What I would like to discuss is, what if they are? How would you like your personal emails to be broadcast? I know it happens to "normal," people all the time, but this is so much bigger, because Emma cannot be considered "normal," and neither can the size of audience this information may receive. There are Emma fans the world over, as well, as Emma haters, and just everyday Joe Blows who don't really care, but may want to take a gander at the emails from the Harry Potter girl. Those are potentially millions of people reading her personal thoughts without her consent. This is not a BLOG setting, this is email. Email should be considered at least a little bit more safe! I think it is disgusting to post these kinds of things about ANYONE, but especially about a YOUNG actress, who essentially hasn't done anything wrong, except allegedly send angry, hurt, and personal emails to her boyfriend, which really, is done by practically everyone at one point!
On the other hand, if these are fake, that means that someone is out there passing it off as truth, just to profit from her! Profit how? Well, not money-wise, probably, since I don't see any way to generate cash from these emails without solid proof. So, they must be trying to profit by boosting their status online. How shallow is that?
Random Fact of the Day: In countries with a constitutional guarantee of the secrecy of correspondence, e-mail is equated with letters and thus legally protected from all forms of eavesdropping, says this Wikipedia article.
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