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METAMODERNISM AND THE QUESTION OF PRIVACY AND 

CONFIDENTIALITY IN THE DIGITAL AGE 

 

Ovwata Success Onojieruo 

sovwataonojieruo@gmail.com; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6471-8615 

Department of Philosophy, 

University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria. 

& 

Idubamo Daniel Agbada 

iddagbada@gmail.com; https://orcid.org/0009-0005-2872-9682 

Department of Philosophy, 

University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria. 

 

ABSTRACT 

In this paper, inquiry will be made into the extent to which individual freedom and social 

responsibility conflates or conflicts on issues surrounding privacy and confidentiality as well 

as the reflection of these issues on the constituent element of knowledge construction and social 

formation in what could be termed as the ‘new social’, that is, the digital. The integral 

framework of this research would take off from the meta-modern standpoint in determining the 

question of privacy and confidentiality, and fitting same as being a conflict between grounds 

of social-politico organisation of society and individual rights and liberties. Similarly, the 

State’s duty to protect the social structure against the background of the burgeoning influence 

of big data companies, and the individual’s responsibility to protect the confidentiality of his 

‘digital persona’ presents the reflex point which determines the intersection between the social, 

political and legal components of digital society. Thus, this research would interrogate the 

discourses which surround the meta-modern perspective of social formation and knowledge 

construction, by presenting arguments for a more regulative but not restrictive digital sphere, 

as it relates to the protection and use of individual data. The research would fundamentally 

argue that there exists certain level of direct connections between the meta-modern 

construction of knowledge and social formation with the realistic approach to the question of 

privacy and confidentiality in the digital sphere, by engaging with the three basic themes of: 

the constituent element of meta-modernism, the debate surrounding privacy and confidentiality 

in both the old and new social, and the intersection between both themes. 

Keywords: Cyberethics, Social Epistemology, Metamodernism, Privacy, Confidentiality, 

Knowledge Organisation System. 

INTRODUCTION 

Between the social and the new social (digital) is the historical-ideological template, which 

tends to determine and predetermine the trajectory of epistemic ideals in the construction of 

social relations as well as social structure. This historic-ideological template plays a 

fundamental role in determining individual freedom and the trajectory for which social identity 

and social responsibility either conflict or conflate.  

While social relations designate the broad spectrum of relationships entered into by individuals 

within the social sphere (Mucha, 2006), social structure deals with the construction of social 

relations along organised lines (Elder-Vass, 2007); the lines of social determining constructs 

mailto:sovwataonojieruo@gmail.com
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6471-8615
mailto:iddagbada@gmail.com
https://orcid.org/0009-0005-2872-9682


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such as the moral, the legal, and the political. The interrelation of these constructs again 

predetermines what becomes socially acceptable, or what constitutes the acceptable norms of 

society. This explicit nature of such interrelation is built on the grounds that while the social 

sphere is the layer from whence the moral, the legal, and the political take its rootsthat is; the 

moral, legal, and political cannot, and do not exist in isolation outside the sphere of the social, 

yet these constituent elements become the regulatory scope from whence the activities of the 

social get determined along the lines of right and wrong, good or bad, just or unjust, lawful or 

unlawful. This infers that constructs such as those mentioned above, used in designating the 

actions of individual constituent elements of the social, are a product of the interrogation of 

social determining constructs – moral, legal, and political – with the reality of social life. 

The substance of this position is reflected in the discourse surrounding the state of nature, 

wherein it is evident that none of these constituent elements had a recognisable influence over 

the organisation of social life, until man decided to enter into the social contract and as such 

transitioninto civil society (Klosko, 2011). This social contract has ensured that man shares 

some values with his fellows to ensure peaceful relations (Agbada, 2024, p. 13).Thus, civil 

society became the established social structure, along which lines the intricacies of social 

relations have continued to be evaluated. 

This research intends to evaluate these intricacies by examining how the construction of what 

can be termed ‘private’ as well as confidentiality are an integral element of the social sphere 

and how the epistemic ideals upon which society runs, tend to either determine or predetermine 

these changes. The research will look into what constitutes privacy and confidentiality and the 

extent to which it plays a role in the social, by evaluating the same against its reflection in the 

digital age and pinpointing how the elements of metamodernism interlace with, cum creates 

the pedestal within which the question of privacy and confidentiality is determined in the digital 

age. Thus, the very integral question of what constitutes the nature of privacy and 

confidentiality becomes a crucial element for the first part of the interrogation in this research. 

THE QUESTION OF PRIVACY AND CONFIDENTIALITY 

Nature of Privacy 

The term privacy is sometimes an elusive concept, it could refer to solitude or physical isolation 

(Tonick, 2011).D. S. Warren and D. L. Brandeis describe it as the right “to be let alone,” (1890). 

M.Tonick further explains privacy as not “having information about oneself revealed to others” 

(2011, p. 1355). It can also be seen as the right to make decisions about one’s own life. Every 

individual desires the ability to control what information goes out about him or her, a right to 

stay out of the bustle of communal life in peace and enjoy solitude. These inherent desires also 

draw up with them a hostility towards any who tends to intrude into what one may have termed 

a ‘Private space.’  There exists even a wider margin and dichotomy between public life (for 

those engaged in some form of public affairs), and private activities. Each of these individuals 

seeks to treat both ends of their lives as utterly opposite and would reject any form of scrutiny 

into what may be termed an intrusion into their personal lives.  

However, this need for privacy which mounts up in every human interaction, has faced even 

greater scrutiny within the context of the 21stcentury. With the rise of telecommunication, and 

other forms of media infrastructure, most especially the dominant popularity of social media, 

the ability of individuals to limit what form of information about them is let out, has gradually 

been eroded. With the presence of phishing sites, data mining agencies, several online tracking 

systems, spy networksand agencies, and even the now popular ATS, used by HR in tracking 



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the past activities of job applicants, a most pertinent question thus arises as to where exactly 

the intersection between necessary public data and personal private information should be 

placed. On a more disturbing note are the activities of the Government and its agencies, most 

especially as in the name of ensuring security, she extends the right to garner as much 

information on private citizens as possible. These and more, raise the question of whether or 

not an individual has a definite right to privacy. And how exactly are such rights either 

constructed or emplaced? Most importantly, what structures or provisions are there to secure 

this most cherished right to privacy of each individual? 

The Right to Privacy 

C. W. Plouffe notes that “The Legal and Political aspects of the scope of the right to privacy 

are still not settled.” (2011, p. 1357) This raises an important question as to what dimensions 

an individual struggle for a right to privacy could take. Although F. Olsen outlines that “Privacy 

is considered basic to a free and open society, and crucial for individual development,” (1998, 

p. 6864).He further maintains that the concept of privacy as a legal right is of recent origin 

(1998, p. 6864). While the very idea of a right to privacy has never been alien to any existing 

democratic society, even in the era of early Grecian Philosophy as J. DeCew notes; “Aristotle’s 

distinction between the public sphere of politics and political activity, the polis, and the private 

or domestic sphere of the family, the Oikos, as two distinct spheres of life, is a classic reference 

to a private domain.” (2018). In more recent times this very right to privacy has been sealed 

internationally by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In Article 12, it states: 

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, 

home, or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. 

Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or 

attacks. (Kaci, 2015, p. 26) 

Although this right has been enshrined by the United Nations since 1948, it has slowly found 

its way into the Constitutions of many Nations, with several still holding back its full 

implementation for political reasons. Yet the very fundamental nature of privacy as a human 

right shows practically in every form of human interaction. However, even in States wherein 

the right to privacy has been fully recognised, the Government and its parastatals, continually 

make intrusions at several intervals, raising a most important question as to whether privacy as 

a right should be unlimitedly enjoyed by all individuals, or if it’s practical implementation 

should face certain limits? Furthermore, with the reality of private data being available for 

public use, who bears the burden of the protection and preservation of these data? 

The Privacy-Confidentiality Nexus 

While privacy as examined in the sections above, deals with the freedom from intrusion, 

confidentiality deals with the keeping and maintenance of private data from prying eyes (Crotty 

&Mostaghimi, 2014).It encapsulates an obligation on the part of the receiver of private 

information – transmitted as data, whether social or digital data – to prevent the disclosure of 

information designated as confidential by the giver of such data, to ensure that the individual 

retains control over his private information, as a means of satisfying the demands of the 

individual’s right to privacy (Bos, 2020). 

This infers that confidentiality depicts a duty and an obligation on the part of the receiver of 

private data, within the ambits of policies mutually agreed upon by both parties. The form of 

agreement, its details as well and the accompanying challenges of preserving such data,differ 



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in the realm of the social, and the ‘new social’ or the digital, as would be discussed later on in 

this paper. To this end, the central component of confidentiality is the ‘trust element’, which is 

defined by T. Grandison and M. Sloman as “the firm belief in the competence of an entity to 

act dependably, securely and reliably within a specified context” (2000). N. Richards and W. 

Hartzog argued that as an essential ingredient of digital life, trust encapsulates the foundational 

building block upon which information relationships between individuals, professionals, 

private institutions, and/or government are consolidated (2016), which becomes even more 

necessary as it relates to the generation and distribution of knowledge in the digital society 

(Benito et al, 2006). In a more simplified form, privacy is seen as applying to persons, whereas 

confidentiality concerns data (University of Kentucky. 2018), to what end, the individual’s 

information, made available to another entity, is conceived of as data’. This raises the crucial 

question of the point at which the individual data could lose its right of being held 

confidentially, which by extension juxtaposes the question as to the extent to which the notion 

of privacy can realistically be limited.  

The Limits of Privacy 

Plouffe divides privacy into four basic aspects:“1) Publication of private facts, such as personal 

sexual practices 2) Placing a person in a false light by publishing information that would 

damage their reputation 3) Invading a private space such as trespassing in a person’s house, 

and 4) appropriation of another person’s identity.” (2011, p. 1357). In several areas, there exists 

a drawn line between these presumed aspects of privacy, and their actual practice. For example, 

in cases of accused sexual assault perpetrators, the court sometimes warrants an inquiry into 

their past sexual conduct to draw out a pattern in handling the present accusation, the police 

would carry out such intense scrutiny and if it were already a popular story, the Media would 

make a serious buzz about it too, to which we may certainly ask; do the performance of such 

aspect of privacy exclude those accused of such misconduct? What if in the end the individual 

is discharged and acquitted, how does such an individual cope with personal data like his sexual 

patterns already out in a public space? In the same vein, the scrutiny of public officers and 

celebrities draw a parallel with the second and third aspect of privacy as outlined above to 

which we may again query whether or not some particular sect of people could have their 

Privacy taken away from them legally? viz; an accused person under investigation in the first 

case, and a public figure or celebrity in the second.   

Etzioni argues that Privacy as a legal right within the Constitution is a recent creation that faces 

obvious limitations in the modern composition of societybecause, within a broader 

consideration, Government measures such as security cameras in public spaces, emplacement 

of security measures or anti-crime measures at certain times could be worked over. “If these 

new measures are reasonable then no one’s rights have been violated - in the legal sense.” 

(2005, p. 255). However, in even more practical instances privacy itself has been shown to 

have practical limits in instances such as; 

1. Cases of mass insecurity or criminal activities: Etzioni notes that with “The changed 

historical conditions, what we currently face - as threats to our security have increased, 

first from criminals and terrorists... There are more and more legal searches for which 

neither warrants nor even specific suspicion are required.” To which one may certainly 

ask, could there not exist a way wherein the Government could still see to these security 

needs while protecting individual privacy? 

2. At the intersection between individual right to personal liberty and shared or group 

challenges: In situations of mass group anxiety, such as Public health challenge or a 



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Pandemic - as have been seen in the Covid and Post-Covid era - the individual right to 

privacy and most essentially personal liberty have certainly been curbed as a result of 

mass lockdowns, travel bans, forced-in restrictions (which could seem more like a 

house arrest), forced medical tests, as well as publication of health records of victims 

on the public spaceand other such measures which have been termed ‘Reasonable,’ 

(2005, p. 255) and very necessary for the protection of public health. This again raises 

the question of whether or not respect for the private record of individuals can 

justifiably be eroded under the guise of an emergency. 

3. Instances of public fear and pandemonium: For example, after the September 11, 2001 

attack on the United States, the US Government seized on the public pandemonium and 

implemented what could have been termed high-handed monitoring practices, such as; 

monitoring of phone calls, making abrupt search on suspected individuals without a 

search warrant, monitoring emails via the use of certain keywords to fetch out terror 

messages, et al (Carlisle, 2021). In the same vein, after the EndSARs protests that took 

place across Nigeria, the federal government seized on the public disruptions and 

reported instances of pandemonium to shut down Twitter, impose new social media 

regulatory practices, as well as acquire and even publish the financial records of 

accused sponsors of the EndSARs protests (Elega, Mohammed, & Oloyede, 2023). 

While these measures could have been termed unconstitutional at ordinary times, they 

were excused as being very necessary for public security and safety (Etzioni, 2005, pp. 

255-256). Furthermore, in more recent times, the Nigerian Government has mandated 

the compulsory linking of mobile SIM cards to the National Identity Number (NIN), 

placing as an excuse; the security conditions of the country, and the need to apprehend 

criminals in a faster and more precise manner (Abubakar, 2011). These seeming mass 

surveillance, and mass forced data collection which under normal times ought to be 

classified as gross infractions of privacy, are very easily excused even by citizens 

themselves, as necessary for the security of everyone, thus enacting an obvious limit on 

privacy itself. 

4. Job demands and corporate society: With the prevailing necessity of fitting into 

corporate society, the line between privacy and meeting these job demands tends to 

present a drawn-out line. For example, public officers would have their every action 

scrutinised including even their emails and personal messages, by proponents of 

opposing views to pick up points that could either be damning or serve to further some 

nefarious aim of such opponent. An example could be found in the publication of 

Private records of then Candidate, and now President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (Iniobong, 

2022), as well as releasing private phone conversations with Journalist Rufai Oseni (My 

Nigeria, 2023), amongst others, all during the period of Nigeria’s 2023 elections. These 

obvious privacy breaches are left unconsidered, the moment presumed‘dirt’or 

wrongdoing is found, without recourse as to how it was found, and whether or not it 

involved a gross breach of the privacy right of the individual in question. Thus, under 

such circumstances, the rights to privacy of these individuals faces considerable limit. 

In the same vein, private companies track down the activities of their employees, 

sometimes even their private activities to see if these constitute a threat to the growth 

of the company, most especially security or investigative firms (West, 2021). Further, 

even in more moderate firms, the intrusion into privacy could come via multiple calls 

even at odd and non-work hours, from clients to which the individual is forced to attend 

for the sake of avoiding queries and retaining such jobs. Thus, there exist little or no 

dichotomy, between what could constitute Job requirements for persons, and their 

private life. 



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5. Social media: While these above infractions of privacy may be noted as being 

sometimes without, or with forced individual consent, social media present a more 

willing arrangement to give up certain levels of privacy to stay connected on such 

platforms, which Etzioni notes; “Our behaviour shows that there are numerous values 

that trump or take precedence over privacy.” (2005, p. 254). These behaviours which 

may be seen as a more voluntary limit to privacy constitute individuals giving off vital 

information about themselves to social media websites or apps to keep having access 

to such platforms. The usage of these data is with little control from the individual, even 

though there are existing privacy rights within the confines of such media companies, 

its obvious abuse, misuse, or forced use via governmental mandate creates a problem 

as to whether such publicly heralded privacy rights are not just done for the screens. 

These above obvious breaches of privacy for very excusable and even cogent reasons, raise a 

most fundamental question viz; “Should individual privacy be left unmonitored for any reason 

whatsoever, or should the government or community hold some level of autonomy in 

restricting privacy at some point?”, More so, to what extent does the construction of knowledge 

about privacy fit into the entire discourse on privacy and confidentiality? 

THE METAMODERN AND THE PRIVATE 

Modernism, Postmodernism, Metamodernism, and its Ideological Trajectory 

What constitutes the private, functions differently in each composition of social life. For 

example, the designation of what is private would differ in a democratic society from what is 

obtainable in a socialist or communist society.1 To this end, the notion of the private is socio-

politically specific, that is; it is subject to the prevalent socio-political makeup of a definite 

society. In the same vein, the reflection of how the approach to privacy is either sustained or 

strangulated can be examined within the lines of the epistemic tensions that exist between 

modern, postmodern, and metamodern societies. On a nominal scale, the ideas of modernism, 

postmodernism, and metamodernism have been argued to be both historical constructs as well 

as ideological positions (Vermeulen & Akker, 2010). 

This historical-ideological divide attempts to place the modern within a definite timeframe; the 

first argument; traces the modern to ‘the age of enlightenment’, while the second argument 

traces the modern to the twentieth-century linguistic turn in philosophy (Ermarth, 1998). This 

argument for a historical placement of these ideas also attempts to historically situate the 

postmodern as beginning from the mid or late-20th century (Ermarth, 1998),while placing the 

metamodern as beginning from the 21st century, as a result of the breaking down of the 

postmodern boundaries (Vermeulen & Akker, 2010).A. Le Cunff argues that on a historical 

scale, the modern, postmodern, and metamodern can be associated with significant elements in 

the rise of the media; on what note he categorises the modern as being associable with the rise 

of the Radio, the Postmodern with the Television and the metamodern with the internet and 

digital means of communication (2021). The centerpiece of Le Cunff’s argument is hinged on 

the position that development in the agency of media communication has played a key role in 

shaping and determining the prevalent ideologies upon which the epistemic foundations of 

society have rested, which in a similar vein also largely shapes how society reacts to the 

                                                           
1 Communism emphasises the benefits which is obtainable by society as a whole, whether or not such benefit 

trumps essential individual rights. Thus, while democracy encourages individualism and by extension seeks to 

uphold the right to privacy, communism rejects the principles of individualism and instead argues for collective 

surveillance of its citizens. See https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/2007-08/communism-

computing-china/privacy.html, for a brief article on the non-existence of a right to privacy in communist China.  

https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/2007-08/communism-computing-china/privacy.html
https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/2007-08/communism-computing-china/privacy.html


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designation of what is private or the responsibilities saddled on the individual in possession of 

a certain form of confidential information (Le Cunff, 2021). 

If we follow the analysis given by Le Cunff, the radio, and television belonged to the realm of 

‘the social’, whereas the digital belongs to the realm of the ‘new social’. The predetermining 

elements of the society were the composition of society along visible lines and the difficulty it 

took to cross the lines of national boundaries. Thus, what was social was limited to the 

immediateenvironment of the individual, and his ideologies were influenced by the prevalent 

notions and positions that reinforced such ideology. This placed the individual in a self-

absorbed state of knowing only that which was available and not that which was obtainable. 

Thus, the individual decision-making credentials were furnished by the information gleaned 

from agencies such as the radio, magazines, Journals, and Television, hence in the social, man 

was limited to what the eyes could see, and decision-making was further limited to what was 

obtainable through the lenses of other fellows who also viewed the world from the perspective 

of their social boundaries.  

For instance, the domination of the radio in the early years of the 20th century as Le Cunff 

points out, aided in the consolidation of thinking along absolute lines, to the end that absolutism 

was more amenable to the modern era, as the views expressed in society were the age-long 

acceptable societal view carried within the lines of limited interactions amongst individuals. 

This inferred that since individuals were limited by their spatial boundaries, they were wont to 

interpret even the happenings in other societies from the lenses of their spatial boundaries, 

rather than the spatial boundaries of the society being interrogated, and such a view towards 

interpreting external societies owed to the existence of limited information about those 

societies, to what end it became much easier to interpret society in terms of an absolutist 

position, vis a vis; the standard for right or wrong, good or evil were seen as absolute standards 

and superimposed on other societies by an inquirer, whether or not the societal cultures 

differed. 

The postmodern under this position became triggered by the realisation of different social 

compositions and societal organisations as well as the existence of conflicting cultures which 

challenged the idea of a hegemonic absolute criterion for interpreting the way things are in the 

world. This realisation as Le Cunff points out had a lot to do with the rise and spread of new 

ideas, and advancement in media and telecommunications, which subsequently led to the 

putting to use of such understanding in transmitting life images, leading to the rise of the 

television (Le Cunff, 2021). The reality of the rise of the television as well as advancement in 

telecommunication and transportation tools led to the advancement of closer networking 

amongst people and the reality of existing closer ties which challenged the view of examining 

a different society from the lenses of one’s own biases but rather the reality of interpreting each 

society in its regards became an obvious necessity (Le Cunff, 2021). 

Similarly, the metamodern as Le Cunff argues stems from the obvious reality of each individual 

being in charge of his own story, and views the world from the lenses of a subjectivist rather 

than an objectivist position. This position does not affirm the trajectory of modernism or 

postmodernism, neither does it reject it (Le Cunff, 2021).Le Cunff attempts to point out that 

the metamodern credentials are founded on the rise of the digital sphere, for which the reality 

of the internet and social media, now determines the substantiality of narratives being pushed 

out. To this end what is termed as the ‘new social’ becomes the underlying point of the 

metamodern, as social interactions are no longer limited to an individual spatial space, but 

rather transcend national boundaries, giving an individual the ability to shape his narrative and 



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even become a part in the conversation on oneself, through the agency of the ‘digital persona’. 

This infers that on a metamodern scale, the individual has the capability of creating a distinct 

persona and existing as that persona whether or not the behavioural reflections of such persona 

differ from the individual’s subjective reality in the social. Thus, the new social is a product of 

the digital and exists within the bounds of the digital sphere. 

There are problems with Le Cunff’s position, most especially if we balance it against 

Ermarth’sargument on the historical-ideological flowchart of the modern and postmodern. 

Although Ermarth tends to agree that technological advancements were to some extent 

triggering fuel that aided the transition from the modern to the postmodern, she nevertheless 

refuses to stereotype such development as existing only within the media space, as Le Cunffdid. 

Ermarth took a more holistic position by placing the interrogation about the modern and the 

postmodern within the realms of a history of ideas rather than a history of society. To this end, 

Ermarth’s position was hinged on looking out for the timeline of the development of these ideas 

and the nitty-gritty of developments obtainable in such a timeline, rather than a connection 

between social influences and the development of these ideas.  

This paper takes a position geared at interrogating the ideas in themselves as epistemic 

constructs rather than historical-ideological constructs. Its emphasis is rather on what 

constitutes the epistemic positions of each of these ideas most especially the idea of 

metamodernism, and how such epistemic construction shapes the understanding of the notion 

of privacy and confidentiality in the digital. it may not be far out of place to affirm either Le 

Cunff’shistory of society position by synchronizing the metamodern with the digital or take 

Ermarth’s history of ideas position by interrogating the history of the idea of metamodernism, 

however, this paper rather asks a different question, viz; what is the underlying ideological 

position of metamodernism, and how is it relevant to the discourse on privacy? 

One of the foundational lines of distinction between the three epistemic positions outlined 

above is its approach to an objective or absolute reality. The modern consolidates its ground 

on absolutism the postmodern espouses relativism, but it becomes a lot more problematic as to 

what stand metamodernism espouses. 

Metamodernism and the Discourse on Privacy 

Vermeulen and Akker (2010) affirm metamodernism as taking a ‘both neither’ dynamic. This 

infers that metamodernism oscillates between modern and postmodern ideologies, without 

being subjected by an affinity to any. Modernism is built upon absolute grounds while 

postmodernism lays its argumentative paradigms on relativistic and pluralistic grounds 

(Agbada &Tomoloju, 2025, pp. 111-112). Metamodernism rejects the absolutist grounds of 

modernist thought but does not necessarily accept the pluralist bent of modernist thought; 

rather, it attempts to deal with the subjective individual and his place in the world than the 

interrogation of an external objective or relative reality (Abramson, 2015). 

To this end, Le Cunff affirms that metamodernism, while dealing with the digital, attempts to 

take a middle ground in its interrogation based on its exposure to divergent and sometimes 

contradictory forms of knowledge, for which it is the subjective individual who is saddled with 

the responsibility of choosing between what systems of knowledge to affiliate with. Thus, this 

individual (subjective) basis of knowledge determination creates both contradictory and 

complementary systems based on the availability and reliability of information from whence 

such knowledge is gleaned. On such note, the present digital society is seen to be interlaced 

and plagued by the reality of a subjective construction of knowledge in the digital space, for 



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which both algorithms and trends have to a large extent become the determinant of what is 

known. This infers that the ‘digital persona’ constructs his knowledge from the digital sphere 

based on the available information gleaned via trending topics and algorithmic processes which 

tends to bring similar instances based on individual choice, allowing the digital persona to 

sometimes take positions on specific issuesthat are contrary to the facts of such 

issues.However, such decision-making would also have been based on the reality of available 

information gleaned from the digital sphere.Hence, while the subjective individual is saddled 

with the enormous responsibility of constructing his knowledge in the digital sphere which as 

Le Cunff points out; exists within the ground of a metamodern outlook on knowledge 

construction (Le Cunff, 2021), the ‘digital persona’ is also subjected to the manipulative 

influences of misinformation and mal-information, which creates the reality of contradictory 

knowledge claims and positions, based on individual algorithimic selections.2 

Based on the above, the predominant view of privacy as evident in metamodern spaces, micro 

zooms privacy into the intersubjective relationship between the individual who possesses the 

obvious right to privacy and the vendor (seen to be any; company, organisation, and/or 

institution) who purchases access to such information based on ‘trust’ in keeping the acquired 

information confidential, as an exchange for the individual’s access to the services provided by 

the vendor. But this position is also interlaced by the necessity of a vendor, cooperating with 

the government and its agencies in exposing individuals who may prove a threat to open 

society. 

The basic question thus becomes the extent to which an individual vendor ought to keep from 

the public and government; information that is not only critical but also detrimental to the well-

being of others in society. This raises the reality of the ethical dilemma involved in the question 

of privacy. The extent to which metamodernism captures this ethical dilemma rests on the 

reality that metamodern spaces steer clear of a definite holistic commitment to the divulging 

of personal information but agree on the fundamental necessity of protecting the privacy of its 

digital user on the one hand and the generality of all users on its space, as well as within society 

(Pipere&Martinsone, 2022).To this end, the vendor is charged with a dual responsibility of 

protecting individual privacy, and at the same time a corporate social responsibility of 

divulging incidents of threat to society emanating from its platform. On such note, selective 

censorship; described by Kalinka as ‘personalization’ (Kalinka, 2022), becomes a tool for the 

internal sanity of digital spaces, while cooperation with law enforcement agencies becomes a 

tool for the external sanity of social spaces (vis a vis; in a bid to protect such social spaces from 

threats emanating from the digital sphere). 

The reality of this ‘both neither’ dynamic for which metamodernism has been classified, is 

shown forth in several researches carried out concerning privacy. For example, while 40 

percent of Citizens in the United States believed that the government should take the leading 

role in battling cybercrime, 86 percent of American citizens affirmed the desire to decrease 

their digital footprint (DataProt, 2023), which raises the question as to how exactly can the 

government tackle cybercrimes if she cannot gain access to the digital footprints and/or 

                                                           
2Algorithms in the digital sphere determine what forms of information an individual is presented, and what forms 

of results will come first in any search which he does. Thus, if an individual has interacted for a long time with 

digital pages (whether on social media or internet searches), that have been purveyors of false information, he is 

most likely to be presented first with stories from such sources, whenever he logs on his social media feeds or 

perform a simple internet search. Similarly, if there are no websites that have debunked some form of false 

information available in the digital space, a subjective individual is as likely to see it as true and base his claim on 

the sources from which he got such information. 



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32 
 

activities of her citizens. Similarly, research by the Pew Research Center found that while 70 

percent of adults worry about the security of their private data and information shared with 

companies, 97 percent of the same set of adults affirmed being asked by companies to accept 

privacy terms before using the services offered, only 9 percent affirmed that they always read 

the privacy policies before accepting it,while 13 percent affirmed to do that often, 38 percent 

affirmed to doing it sometimes and 36 percent affirmed to never reading the privacy policies 

(Pew Research Center, 2019). This again raises the question as to; on whom then should the 

blame for the seeming erosion of privacy be leveled; the individual who fails to study the 

privacy terms he/she assents to or the company who drafts such terms?D. D. Sasu (2023) 

outlined that in Nigeria, about 32 percent of internet users in 2022 declined website cookies, 

while 19 percent preferred to remain anonymous online, to maintain the security and non-

availability of their private information, which thus made it difficult to track and/or distinguish 

between scammers and normal individuals who are just concerned about their privacy, on the 

basis that the lack of access to the identity of the digital persona affects the capacity of 

appropriate agencies to act in cases of real threat that tends to transcend the digital into the 

social sphere, which thus raises the question as tohow government can act in protection of the 

citizenry against vices that emanates from the digital while being denied access to vital 

informationwhich could lead to tracking such vices? This reality points out the necessity of 

redefining the grounds and elements for privacy as it relates to the digital society. 

Reimagining Privacy and Confidentiality in the Digital Age 

All through this section, it has been maintained that the outlook on privacy takes a different 

pattern when interrogated against the backdrop of metamodern societies, based on the lack of 

a firm ideological grip to define the metamodern position. This is further based on the fact that 

metamodernism as examined through this section takes a ‘both neither’ dynamic; that is a 

commitment to privacy and a desire for increased regulation to curb cyber ills which could 

either directly or indirectly limit privacy. Thus, while affirming a stronger involvement of 

government in addressing the threats which most times transcend from the digital into the 

social, and while also understanding that the involvement of government can only be 

productive if there is sustained access of government to confidential information, metamodern 

societies, elect to keep theseinformation away from government, raising the problematic as to 

where exactly she falls. 

However, if interrogated from another perspective, metamodernism tends to take a position 

that rejects the presence of only two alternatives, viz; increased privacy and lesser activities of 

government or her agencies in curbing cyber challenges which could stem into the social, or 

more active involvement of government in solving these challenges at the expense of reduced 

privacy. Metamodernism tends to affirm the possibility of having the cake and eating it too, 

that is; the reality of having an increased involvement of government in solving cybercrimes 

while also having a high level of individual privacy retained. This reality draws on the position 

that the discourse around privacy must be rechannelled to fit in these metamodern tensions, as 

well as the development of intentional strides aimed at combining these seeming opposites. 

The points outlined below are thus needful as a background ideological landscapefrom whence 

theadvancement of such interrogation commences; 

1. The Knowledge debate: The position of having to choose between an absolute right to 

privacy versus a relative right to privacy would require an ideological replacement 

within metamodern spaces, of which the digital world is its practical reflection. 

Metamodernism takes away the absolute versus relative debate and replaces it with a 



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subjective individual determining his place in the world and at the same time seeking 

to protect that place from limitations to his free expression, as well as attacks by 

criminal syndicates. This idea of protecting the individual not only as a digital persona 

alone but also as a social entity with an actual life outside the digital sphere must be the 

foundational grounding for any interrogation of an approach to privacy. 

2. Socio-Political organisation: The question revolving around privacy and confidentiality 

should of necessity be shifted away from the question of democratic practice into the 

question of democratic ideals. D. D. Raphael (1990), outlined that democratic ideals 

are operational even in a non-democratic society, on that note, privacy must not be seen 

from the lens of being a democratic society prerogative, but an ideal whose fundamental 

reach and scope transcends even in a non-democratic society.This infers that, the 

democratic ideals of liberty and equality are to form the fundamental layer for enacting 

privacy policies (on the level of companies that handle individual data), protecting 

confidential information, and divulging information where necessary to governmental 

agencies. 

3. Reinforcement of the right to privacy: The integral element of ‘consent’ in the 

divulgement of private information must take precedence over the element of 

‘necessity’ which is sometimes used to explain the erosion of individual right to 

privacy. On this note, private information which falls as confidential data when handled 

by an organisation, company, group, or government must only be released with the 

obtained consent of the individual holding such privacy right, or a duly obtained waiver, 

subject to specific usage and restricted from public access. This infers that even in 

critical conditions where a waiver of an individual right to privacy can be sought (for 

example in criminal trials or cases of severe emergencies), the usage of the obtained 

private data must be subjected to specific rules and restricted whatsoever from being 

made public knowledge. 

4. Confidentiality and the protection of data and databases: If databases are to be managed 

by private infrastructures or companies, such management must be with levels of due 

oversight, not of the data in itself, but of the process of harnessing, handling, and using 

the obtained data. This infers that government parastatals dedicated to the functionality 

of oversight duties must be limited only to interrogatingand investigating the pattern of 

confidentiality agreement existing between the giver and receiver of such data, the 

obligation of both parties, as well as the extent of fulfilmentof those obligations, without 

being privy to the minute intricacies of what constitutes the data being kept or 

preserved. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



                  Ovwata &  Idubamo                              Metamodernism And The Question Of Privacy And…  

34 
 

CONCLUSION 

Throughout this paper, the idea of privacy and confidentiality has been interrogated within the 

bounds of its nature, limits, and ideological positions that place it as either an absolute fact or 

a relative one. The paper interrogated how the inherent debate around the fundamental 

ideological layers of modernism and postmodernism tend to create a ground for a redefinition 

of privacy along a metamodern perspective, by emphasising that the existence of debates 

around the functionality of privacy in the digital world falls directly under the province of 

metamodernism vis a vis; metamodern spaces.To what end,metamodernism as an epistemic 

position seeks to interrogate the component of knowledge construction in the digital, by 

dividing the construction of knowledge along analogue lines for which modernism and 

postmodernism both fit in, and the digital; which represent the metamodern idea. However, 

this paper has maintained that metamodernism tends to merge the modern and postmodern into 

one without taking an ideological commitment to any, from what lenses, metamodernism 

interrogates the question of privacy from the perspective of a ‘both neither’ dynamic, rejecting 

the limitations on privacy, while affirming the necessity of protecting the individual from the 

negativities of the cyberspace, an interrogation of which exists within definite tensions, which 

draws on the necessity for reimagining the ideological foundations for the discourse on privacy 

and confidentiality. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  



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