Danny Zhen
Professor Seth Graves
ENG 2150
21 May 2019
Internet’s Privacy
The Internet Age is a time that has made information move in unprecedented ways. The internet can be seen as having positive impacts in countries with internet. However, it doesn’t exist without flaws. More specifically, the internet has enabled ways for our private lives to no longer be our own. Information sent through the internet can be intercepted and seen by others, whether forcefully or because that’s where the information is being stored. This development has made it into our entertainment, with works such as Black Mirror episode “Shut Up and Dance” and novel The Circle by Dave Eggers having their own take on how our privacy has begun to decline. Black Mirror’s take on privacy is from the standpoint of being hacked and therefore unwillingly giving up private information. The episode uses common tropes of hacking to tell a story about the reality of being hacked, ultimately losing many aspects of privacy. The Circle’s take talks about corporations’ control over our information that we unintentionally give to the corporations. The novel uses the motif of being open to sharing private information to talk about large corporations’ role in our information. These works speak to how our privacy isn’t “private” during the Internet Age, where we unknowingly give up our privacy to access the internet.
Black Mirror episode “Shut Up and Dance” tells the story of a teenager, Kenny, who has his laptop infected with malware because of his sister. He tries to remedy the situation by trying to remove the malware, but it doesn’t work. Thinking he had successfully removed the malware, he continues his life as normal. Unfortunately, that leads to his downfall when he is caught masturbating because through his own laptop. He finds out he was caught through an email blackmailing him to follow their demands or a video of him masturbating will be sent to everyone on his contacts. Not wanting that to happen, he complies, leading him on a chain of events to satisfy the hacker. Along the way Kenny finds out that he isn’t the only one under the grasp of the hacker. By the end of the episode, the hacker leaks the private information of all the victims despite them complying. Being hacked is the last thing you want on the internet. But with all the benefits the internet brings, staying off the internet is difficult. Our privacy is sacred to us, so when threats to our privacy can be enabled through what we highly rely on, we try to prevent it from doing so. Letting an unauthorized person to peer into our lives is the last thing we want, and it can be enabled simply by being on the internet.
Going back to the beginning of the episode, Black Mirror uses a common trope of what it’s like to be hacked. Kenny’s sister is found with his laptop stating that she tried running a program and ended up freezing the laptop. Kenny then takes the laptop away from her and restarts it only to be greeted with a pop-up with the opportunity to “win a smartphone”. Immediately he knows that his sister had downloaded malware and proceeds to download a malware removal tool. As the viewer, we see that Kenny’s laptop is intact, but doesn’t work. Accompanied with his sister’s claim, we can come to conclude that there must be malware on his laptop. Our assumption is confirmed the same time Kenny sees the pop-up. This is a common way to show a PC being compromised from malware. The pop-up is generally something flashy with attention grabbing content to get the viewer to click on it, which would likely further their already compromised PC. The moment someone else has a way to gain information about us unknowingly, our privacy is no longer private. Black Mirror highlights our fear of getting hacked by demonstrating Kenny’s immediate reaction to remove the malware. This scene was shot entirely without any explicit words stating he was hacked and yet the viewers can make out his situation. The scene finally ends with a cut to the view from Kenny’s laptop camera, watching him get a can of Diet Coke. At this moment, we know Kenny is being spied on without his knowledge. At this point, anything Kenny does around his laptop is no longer private and is broadcasted to the hacker. Kenny is still under the assumption that the malware remover did its job and thought nothing about being hacked. A couple scenes later, we see Kenny at home with his sister. He decides to go to his room to use his laptop, that we know someone is watching Kenny from. The scene continues with Kenny moving a tissue box next to his laptop and then stands up to unbuckle his belt. It finishes off with Kenny in the bathroom washing his hands. Again, this scene is shown without words, but viewers can make the connection that Kenny had masturbated without knowing he was being recorded. Kenny only finds out he was being recorded when he saw an email of what he just did from the hacker. His reaction is enough to show the viewers that he knows what he did wasn’t private. He had expected that his private actions would be private. He hadn’t realized he was unfortunate enough to be a victim of a hack, which is reasonable to do so.
The tropes used to demonstrate getting hacked allow the audience to take in what is happening. Upon getting hacked, there is a moment where we can infer Kenny was hacked, but it hasn’t been confirmed until one scene later. This sets up the viewer to question what might happen because of getting hacked. They soon find out the bad stuff that can occur from getting hacked. Since the hacker was able to gain possession of something that should be private, the hacker is able to manipulate Kenny with the information. When translated into real life, the situation Kenny is in can occur. Our devices contain a lot of private information about us and is vulnerable to being compromised. Black Mirror shows us this case speaking to how our privacy can be taken at any moment. As the viewer, we understood what was happening because of the tropes that were used to indicate being hacked. Everything that happened after shows the extreme of our value of privacy and what it can bring us to do. Kenny went to great lengths to protect his private information and performed tasks that he wouldn’t do on his own. Black Mirror takes this aspect to bring up the dangers that lurk on the internet, despite the unlikelihood of this happening to someone.
Another perspective of privacy implications on the internet come from the book The Circle. It tells a story about Mae Holland, who get hired to the largest tech company, The Circle. She starts off as a customer service and quickly moves up the company. As she continues to move up, she begins to see the company’s goal, with slogans such as “Secrets are lies”, “Sharing is caring”, and “Privacy is theft” becoming promoted. SeeChange, is a camera system used to broadcast live time anything that is happening, was The Circle’s way to promote those ideals. The company was looking to expand SeeChange by adding point of view cameras on people to see what they’re doing. Many politicians began to wear the camera to show their transparency. Mae unfortunately was forced to wear it after taking a kayak from a closed shop while venting. To avoid more legal issues Mae agrees, giving up her privacy. During this time, it is revealed to her that one of her coworkers, Kalden, was one of the founders of The Circle, Ty. Mae and Ty end up meeting up, where Ty tells Mae about the problems The Circle poses to society and asks Mae to help stop The Circle from becoming more of a threat, however, Mae betrays him leading to the other Circle founders to silence Ty. In the end, Mae is found next to her friend, who is in a coma, wondering when The Circle will be able to read minds.
As much privacy is valued, it is sometimes handled rather poorly. We see this near the end of the book just before Mae is about to meet up with Ty. Before Mae can meet up with Ty, she has to discreetly make her way to Ty. However, Mae constantly questions the logistics of going. She knows that going off camera to do something would be going against the company’s ideals. In the end, she concludes that Ty knows what he’s doing and has the power to make sure she can do it discreetly. But only goes because rationalizes that this was all a test to see if she is ready for greater things in the future. At first glance, it is reasonable for Mae to be hesitant about meeting up with Ty, as she doesn’t want to run the risk of getting caught. She has become so accustomed to the ways of the company, that she doesn’t realize latter reasoning. She trusts everyone else rather than herself, going as far as to want someone else to make choices for her. She is willing to give up some of her self will for the benefit of knowing what to do. Corporations have a large influence over and it’s generally because the users give them the control. Mae is a representation of the general user base of large corporations, giving up personal liberties for their services. She is unconsciously giving away something that should be her own. We may value our privacy, but we rarely take the steps to making sure our privacy is ours. They end up meeting and talk about the mandatory membership account for The Circle. Mae constantly advocates it, trying to convince Ty that what The Circle is doing is for the betterment of society. Ty, on the other hand, is concerned over the capabilities of The Circle, as they already have gathered so much information about everyone. She claims this amount of transparency will allow people to find answers in other people. It would allow them to have a better life with less likelihood of horrible things happening. Ty constantly tries to convince Mae that those ideas are all too idealistic. The idea of info communism brings up concern over what the controller of the information, The Circle, can do.
The way in which Mae and Ty discuss privacy is important to how The Circle speaks to privacy over the internet. Ty uses the word “info communism” when talking to Maw about controlling information. Looking at the two words, the reader can see that The Circle wants control over information. The word communism generally has a negative connotation, which likely makes the reader go against the idea. The interesting part is that the main character we’re following is in support of info communism. This puts the reader in a situation that doesn’t seem to have a clear answer. Eggers uses this aspect to get the reader to question their handing of their information. We follow Mae’s journey, watching her comply with The Circle’s orders without thinking too much of her actions. In real life, we give information to companies while signing up without really questioning too much about it. Eggers’ choice to make us follow Mae rather than someone like Ty, gives us a perspective of someone who is unaware of their actions. We focus on the benefits, being able to use whatever app or site, and forget about the fact that we gave an unknown entity our information. For Mae, she only focused on doing her job and not about the impact her actions may bring. Throughout the book, Mae is bringing the topic of privacy along the way through her actions. She may think what she is doing is fine, but taking a step back, there are issues that lie within what she’s doing.
Both Black Mirror and The Circle speak to the problems of internet privacy, but in different ways. Black Mirror portrays our privacy being forcibly taken from us, while The Circle portrays our privacy being unintentionally, but voluntarily given up by us. Despite the differences in approach, they bring up a very important debate about privacy on the internet. Given that the internet is relatively new, the expected norms are only beginning to be set. In the case of privacy, should we be responsible for protecting ourselves from hackers or how should corporations handle the information we give them? Both Black Mirror and The Circle show the extent of these problems when taken to the extreme. They warn the audience of the potential dangers that exist on the internet. Our vulnerabilities are caused the lack of awareness we use while on the internet.
As more and more places gain access to the internet each year, concerns over internet privacy is slowly becoming an issue. As shown in Black Mirror episode “Shut Up and Dance” our privacy is quite vulnerable. Being on the internet enables others, who can do so, to hack and take our information. There are ways to lower the chances of getting hacked, but that doesn’t mean we are completely safe from being hacked. The Circle highlights the influence corporations have over the way information is gained and used. We have become so accustomed to giving out our information to these corporations, that we don’t question the reason for doing so. With events like the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal sparking much controversy, it brings up many questions about our privacy. We unconsciously agree to give these corporations our information. Even when we’re aware of giving them our information, companies are still susceptible to data breaches like that of Equifax. The internet is only going to get bigger as each year passes, which makes the issue of privacy a problem that needs to be solved efficiently.