Blog #11: Privacy

 Is Our Private Life Really Private? Or Are We Just Told It Is?

    After watching the TedTalks in class, and learning about how "private" our lives actually are, it is interesting to see how these online companies are just using all of our information for financial gain, and helping to reiterate the idea that our lives are not actually private like we think they are. 

     This is information that has been told to us several times throughout our lives, but it was interesting to hear it again on this level, and actually go in depth on the ethical issues behind what these companies like Facebook and Twitter do when we sign their Terms and Agreements. 

    One thing that really did shock me was just how much information we sign away when we click "I Agree" on the Terms and Conditions without actually reading through them or looking at them. We are giving these companies the opportunity to access all of our personal information, the pages we visit, what we post about, and not only that but they then have access to store all of the pictures we post and the posts that we make to our personal pages. They are able to take this information and sell it for profit so that we see ads that intrigue us or news stories that they think we may like based on this information. 

    Then, the second part to this contract, is that if they use your information, or if your information happens to get stolen from these websites, you are not able to sue because of the Mediation Clause. "A business contract, lease or other written contract may contain the Mediation Clause. By using such a clause, the parties to the contract agree to mediate any future disputes." You signed the Terms and Conditions, so you knew what you were getting yourself into. 

  

Following You For The Rest of Your Life Like a Tattoo

    I feel like this issue with technology and young people is not stressed enough these days. I see what my friends post on social media, and thankfully I had to start at a very young age, and was taught at a very young age, to watch what I put on social media. When I was younger, I always questioned why my mom would tell me to take down photos or not make a certain post when my friends were doing the same thing. I would get so angry at her that I couldn't do the things that my friends were doing on social media, but now I am thankful. After watching Juan Enriquez's TedTalk, it brought back all of those memories of my mom telling me, and training me, to watch what I put out on the internet. 

    It is interesting to see my college friends post things now on social media with their middle fingers up, chugging bottles of alcohol on Snapchat Stories and Instagram posts, and wondering if they know that their future employer will be able to see that post regardless of whether or not they are a "private" account.  I wish that there was a course in college that students could take that just focused on cleaning up social media pages because future employers will be able to have access to it. Also teaching kids at a young age what is and isn't okay to post, because as we have seen with cancel culture, old posts that individuals make when they are not as smart, have come back to haunt them in the future and ruined the name they have made for themselves as a successful adult.