Will we ever get to a phase in technology where users can feel “safe” using their cell phone, laptop, tablet, etc.?
For the later second-half of the semester, it seems as if privacy has taken over most of our discussions. In the last section of our class, Digital Authorities, we’ve discussed market surveillance and state surveillance; concepts taught to us by Mark Andrejevic. According to Mark, “we know in general terms that we’re being monitored, but we are far from having a sense of how extensive, detailed, and sophisticated the monitoring system has become” (Andrejevic 7); an idea most of us can best refer to as “scary.”
The documentary brings forth a similar concept. In an attempt to better explain this concept, I’m going to make up a concept called “corporate websites” to describe the big players in privacy invasion (FaceBook, Google, Amazon, YouTube, Twitter). From the perspective of the corporate websites, the best way for us to invade your privacy is through our agreement acknowledgement page, listing our terms and conditions. Everyone knows consumers rarely ever read what they’re actually agreeing to. I personally, have never read a companies policy before using their service. It’s surprising to learn that this is just the way the economic system works. Why? Because as educated we like to think we are about privacy policies and law, most of us are actually uneducated.
The relation between the economic systems and the system of government control is based on pure manipulation and deception. In the documentary, “Terms and Conditions May Apply,” Leigh Bryan shares his experience with the economic system and the relation of government control. To summarize, Leigh had posted a tweet on Twitter “@MelissaxWalton free this week for a quick gossip/prep before I go and destroy America? x” and a few days after when he had traveled to the United States, was pulled aside, questioned, and put in jail at the airport for misunderstandings about the meaning in his tweet. This is a perfect example of govement control mechanisms manipulating the ways of the economic system. This was one of the stories I found shocking. Even though in this particular example, the government was trying to act on a threat against national security, it’s racial profiling.
Becauase at the time, with the presidency and Congressmen/women we had in our government, the above scenario was okay. Government control officials can potentially say to any company who keeps a record of it’s users data “hey, I need this and this person’s personal record” and that company would have to comply. Before, the documentary shared a warrant or some sort of formal legality was needed but at the time the video was filmed, formal legality was out the window. As a side fact that I think is important for knowledge acknowledgement, is these companies have access to EVEYRTHING according to the documentary. Things sugh as deleted posts, tweets, searches that you may have forgotten about, corporate businesses can pick up that information within a matter of seconds. This may just be my lack of knowledge on privacy, but this completely threw me for a loop in shock. Imagine you’re applying for a job at Google or FaceBook and the management department looked up your history before deciding your employment status. How would you feel about that?
I’ve done a little more research about what other changes were made to the law since the documentary and as it turns out President Trump had made some recent changes. According to the article, during the Obama presidency, a law was passed but no actions were taken to effect stating “telecommunications companies to obtain user consent before collecting personal information on consumers’ online activities” (Schmidt). During the current Trump presidency, a new law was passed which reversed the effect of the law passed during the Obama presidency. Trump’s new law sas “internet service providers will now be the de facto controller of data privacy standards for fintech businesses and consumers” (Schmidt). What this now means is that service providers will control internet privacy and there’s no going around those policies set.
With this new knowledge, I’m still on the verge if this will better help the issues between consumers and economic systems as well as the issues with the economic systems and government control mechanisms. We can only hope that whatever changes are being made, their being made to keep and make us feel “safe.”
Questions:
- Do you think MUD or any virtual reality stimulation experience privacy issues as prominent as social media platforms? Can you think of any possible examples?
- Kids in the 21th century are so dependent on technology. With this knowledge, why do you think parents still reach for a cell phone or tablet to keep their child quiet? If the parent’s private information is leaked to marketers by the telephone company, who is to blame? The telephone company or the parent?