Privacy is important.
... Right?
Eh, maybe not so much. Or at least, maybe we don't consider it as much as we think we do-- or should do. Every now and then a news story comes up that reminds us just how exposed we are on social networks but then a few weeks pass by and none of us really change our behavior with how we interact online. Whether we like it or not, the online world is one that we are eager to participate in and in the process, leave our own digital footprints behind as we go. Maybe because of peer pressure or obvious convenience, we join social media sites and order merchandise online without ever second thinking ourselves. Meanwhile, we don't even take the time to read through license agreements (boring!) and freely exchange personal information on Facebook and swap insults on Twitter, and enjoy popped up recommendations on Amazon that we can buy as long as we insert our credit card information.
The internet has essentially taken our private, real world lives from offline mode to online.
Practically everything someone says or does on social media and the internet is traceable and is able to be attributed to who we are and what we have interests in (bingo advertisements!). For example, it's no secret that one day you suddenly start talking about your need to buy a specific brand of headphones, then maybe you google search it, click on it, but then suddenly, every ad you see no matter what website or social media app you are on, there's a guarantee that a few of those ads will be featuring those specific headphones that you glanced at. The more you see it, the more likely you are to throw your hands up in the air, say screw it, and buy the damn things. We've all experienced this and it's no secret that people joke around saying "they're listening"!
It's an effective advertisement strategy but in terms of our private searches being used to manipulate ourselves, it's downright creepy. Just last year the entire world keyed in when Mark Zuckerberg was dragged into court and it's no secret that the privacy standards of Facebook have always been questionable, but when New York Times issued a report that showed Facebook had been sharing private information with their tech partners, it only highlighted just how out of hand these privacy issues have arised.
Siva Vaidhyanathan describes in the book how Facebook undermines democracy and essentially puts us into dangers that wouldn't have existed prior, mainly surrounding the concept of websites and internet platforms holding our personal information and using it to categorize us. Vaidhyanathan explains that "privacy is more than the autonomy we exercise over our own information" meaning that we have to put protection barriers into place ourselves to prevent our privacy being overtaken as well as being intelligent enough not to put every little piece of information about ourselves out there.
Putting these behavior into effect is important because we could think that we are private in a sense, and that the information we do put out there is secure, but the actual reality is that it isn't. Just last year Facebook was imposed upon a security breach that exposed the accounts of over fifty million of the platforms users. Everything about them was released; their addresses, contact information, friends, family, photos-- everything! With an event such as this, it really puts things into perspective on how easy it can be to really get ahold of someone's information when you know what you're doing.
With the world becoming more connected and internet savvy, social networks and any internet usage can become more vulnerable. Privacy online will always be a tricky concept and will take years to master (although, with the ever expanding rate of the internet, that issue will more than likely never be handled completely). This means that it is a person's own responsibility to take the necessary precautions so that the harms of the invasion of privacy cannot damage you as much as it can, if you let it.
It's an effective advertisement strategy but in terms of our private searches being used to manipulate ourselves, it's downright creepy. Just last year the entire world keyed in when Mark Zuckerberg was dragged into court and it's no secret that the privacy standards of Facebook have always been questionable, but when New York Times issued a report that showed Facebook had been sharing private information with their tech partners, it only highlighted just how out of hand these privacy issues have arised.
Putting these behavior into effect is important because we could think that we are private in a sense, and that the information we do put out there is secure, but the actual reality is that it isn't. Just last year Facebook was imposed upon a security breach that exposed the accounts of over fifty million of the platforms users. Everything about them was released; their addresses, contact information, friends, family, photos-- everything! With an event such as this, it really puts things into perspective on how easy it can be to really get ahold of someone's information when you know what you're doing.
With the world becoming more connected and internet savvy, social networks and any internet usage can become more vulnerable. Privacy online will always be a tricky concept and will take years to master (although, with the ever expanding rate of the internet, that issue will more than likely never be handled completely). This means that it is a person's own responsibility to take the necessary precautions so that the harms of the invasion of privacy cannot damage you as much as it can, if you let it.
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