While watching this documentary, I wasn’t quite surprised about how little privacy we do have. However, there were many aspects of how our information gets passed around that I was not aware of. Personally, I have never read a Terms and Agreement or Privacy Policy simply because they make them so long and tedious they almost don’t want us to read the fine print. (#1) They mention that our information will go to whoever can price the price. Essentially, giant companies are bidding on our private information. Isn’t that something? All of the irrelevant things I believe I have posted on various social media accounts can actually mean a whole lot.
What we don’t realize is by accepting these terms and conditions, we are actually allowing the government to track our location, emails, text messages, Google searches, and virtually everything we have ever done in our lives. I also didn’t realize that Instagram has the right to sell our images for advertising purposes and users do not need to get compensated or notified. It also amazed me that Mark Zuckerberg asked for his privacy and to not be recorded, which he was not granted as they kept recording.
They bring up how they are using our information to “prevent.” In the example, the Irish guy got pulled aside and questioned for 5 hours because of a tweet. They mentioned how they can look for key words and in his case it was a part of a tweet that said, “destroy America.” Without context, this can be of concern but the two young tourists actually meant they were just coming to America to party and have a great time. They were held and actually handcuffed solely because of this keyword. (#2) This goes to show how easily our information can be pulled and analyzed without even knowing it. (#3) Obama actually said, “Watch what you put on Facebook.”
After watching this documentary, it is crazy to me how willing we are to sell our privacy. They raise the question is privacy dead? I would say yes, it very well might be. In this article, they give tips on how and why we should be more careful on the Internet.
My questions here:
- What do we do if innocent people keep getting nailed for innocent tweets and searches?
- Since there seems to be no law that deals with the policies that allow the U.S. government to abuse personal information, what kind of law would you put in place?
I agree with your assertion that privacy is dead. I also found the questioning of the Irish man to be interesting since they tracked and found his tweet off of a keyword search- a search that fails to recognize context. The connotations of certain words can negate a potentially harmful meaning, as was the case with this man, yet he was still questioned. Is society so paranoid that we can’t have a sense of humor?
1. What do we do if innocent people keep getting nailed for innocent tweets and searches?
If stops like this continue, people will start to censor everything they post online and lose a lot of the humor and wordplay that makes places like Twitter so great.
2. Since there seems to be no law that deals with the policies that allow the U.S. government to abuse personal information, what kind of law would you put in place?
I would put into place explicit laws that notify citizens of being monitored, being accused of suspicion, and being in an area that contains suspicious activity. I would also implement stricter ownership laws so platforms like Instagram could not take others’s work without notifying them or compensating them.