Privacy in Social Media

By KayChatz Social Media No Comments on Privacy in Social Media

Every morning when I wake up, the first thing I do is grab my phone, swipe it open and look at any notifications. I scroll through emails, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, text messages, etc, all still being half asleep, with one eye open. After getting out of bed and eating breakfast, I start my “social day”, tweeting, sharing, liking and sometimes I can hear my fathers voice in my head, “You kids these days are addicted to technology”. Maybe we are. Actually, I do think we are, so I can’t disagree with him on that. My father is still living in the 80’s, where technology and social media wasn’t as popular as it is now. We had a conversation recently regarding how social media kills our privacy. I thought this was such an eye opener coming from someone who doesn’t even use technology (he still watches television from ‘boxed’, squared TV’s). I don’t know how he ever thought of this but he always tells me, “Don’t tell the internet too much information because the Government is watching you and they will hack your stuff”. I always respond, “Dad you don’t know what you’re talking about” – come to think about it, yes he does.

Dads & Technology

             Evidently, he is right. Privacy in the digital age no longer exists. Social media made this point stronger. We have been monitored even before online social media came to existence. The moment we walk outside our homes, to a mall or a grocery store, to a bank, or even the streets, we are being watched and monitored by surveillance cameras everywhere. Every time you search online for the best restaurant, share good news or bad with your Facebook friends or tweet to your followers, your “audience” is bigger than you know. Your every move online leaves cyber footprints that are quickly becoming research without you ever realizing it. Private companies including Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Twitter are collecting this information, and you don’t even know it – not to mention these companies have agreements with governments and sell them this information. When you check into a place on Facebook, when you upload a picture on Instagram and add a location, when you upload a video on Vine or when you tweet on Twitter, we are giving up personal information – regardless if your profile is on private or not – and thus, we are being monitored. Consider that mining online communication has already helped Microsoft identify women at risk of postpartum depression and Facebook has studied how parents and kids interact. How do they know this? “Facebook has transformed from a public space to a behavioral laboratory,” says social psychologist Ilka Gleibs, who is also a professor at the London School of Economics.

Facebook Privacy

            Do we do it to ourselves? Yes. We don’t only use social media to connect with our long lost friends from elementary school. We use social media to express ourselves not by a simple post on how we feel on a specific day but we express our individuality and who we are by the content we share. Everything we like, post, share, retweet is a reflection of who we are. Regardless if your privacy settings are strictly set to showing your content with just your followers, you are still sending out personal information.

 “I sent this. This is part of my work. You shall know me by my works”.

            Tim Rayner addresses in his article the idea of virtual Panopticon, which was an insight from French philosopher Michel Foucault (1926 – 1984). The idea here is that social media is more than a vehicle for exchanging information but identity-formation. When we share content on social media we do it transparently, visibly that it is in the presence of a crowd – a performative act. Foucault was fascinated by Jeremy Bentham’s model of the ideal prison – the Panopticon, which is comprised of a ring of cells surrounding a central guard tower. Guards in the tower are monitoring the prisoners but because they can’t actually see the guards, they don’t know if they’re being watched or not. This makes the prisoners act in a good manner. Foucault claims the effect of the Panopticon induces a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power. This is the same idea on Social Media. By making our actions visible to a crowd, social media exposes us to a kind of virtual Panopticon. Our online activities are monitored and recorded by the social media service to produce market analysis and by the people with whom we share.

Virtual Panopticon

            What about the ‘Terms and Conditions that May Apply’? Do we know exactly what we agree on when we use various social media platforms? When you type something on Google, the company uses cookies to remember the information. Google is watching you! In a documentary, Terms and Conditions May Apply, it was mentioned how the Government is monitoring the Internet and peoples online activity to ensure the safety of others. After the tragedy of 9/11, President George Bush wanted information from individuals’ online activity to monitor any suspicious terrorism. Now the government can legally ask various social networks, like Facebook, Twitter, etc, and thus legally receive personal information.

            So, to back up my fathers point of how the government can ‘hack our stuff’, it is clear that privacy is dead. There is no such thing as privacy. Whether you want to hide your individuality or hide your conversations, or hide your finances, the information is out there and there is nothing you can do about it. You are constantly being monitored and constantly being watched. Your every move is out there. How do you stay private? Simple. Live in a bubble.

Sources

Foucault and Social Media: Life in a Virtual Panopticon

Terms and Conditions May Apply

Social Media Research Raises Privacy & Ethics Issues

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