The question comes in light of the recent young republicans leaks. Firstly, I’m not a republican and I think the shit they were saying was out of line, regardless of context. That said, the situation, among countless other times similar things have happened made me think. Is it reasonable to hold individuals accountable for statements made that they thought were in private. I think the public figure aspect is obviously the main catch here. In instances where the individual is a public figure, they kind of made their bed in my opinion. That said though, the more normal and sensational these events become the more realistic it is to widen in scope. Would it be reasonable for a future employer or date to pull up your group chats/private messages/anonymous posts?
First, there are still technical means and operational security techniques of having and safeguarding private chats, that means if you don’t utilize them and it leaks, it’s basically your fault for either not being informed enough or for being too careless.
Second, if you do criminal things in said private chats, and it leaks, then you should be held accountable for it. Especially if, as in this case, what you did went against the constitution, human rights or similar very basic laws that no one should break, ever. In these times, no one can predict if or when such online hostility turns into real-life hostile acts. The line that separates saying hostile stuff online and actually doing it IRL is sometimes very thin. With the extreme amounts of right-wing extremist propaganda on the web these days, I’d say this is a serious matter and there’s a high chance that some individuals will forget their moral compass and just go full Nazi after being exposed to too much of this stuff.
To your first point, then youd say private chats being used against you (personally or professionally) is fine because its your fault they able to be hacked/accessed? To your second point, I’m not really talking about actual criminal activity. Any criminal activity can, will and should be used in a judicial context to convict of a crime. I’m mostly speaking about social and professional consequences for private chats.