"People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people," he said. "That social norm is just something that has evolved over time." (2010 Zuckerberg)
In the UK, under the Human Rights act, ever citizen in the UK, has enshrined in law a right to a private life, however has the idea of privacy changed the the advent of mass social networks sites like twitter and Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg declared that the socially accepted view of privacy is dead, and the younger generation have different view of privacy than the older generation. Some have put this down to the fact that unlike adults, younger people have less control over other aspects of their lives and the internet is a place where they feel that they have control over the content that they give out. I would go with this argument however there are dubious grey ares surrounding privacy, when it comes to advertising. Social network users might have control of what they place on a Facebook page for example, but then they do not have any control over what then is done with that information. Social networks sell the information to companied which then can use the information, to create targeted market strategies for individual users, even a small piece of information like gender, or relationship status can heavily change the way you are targeted. For example, I single on my Facebook and on the advert bar, there is adverts for dating websites, which changed to other websites, if I changed that status to being in a relationship/married. To a certain extent we have to put up with this because we accept that we live in a consumerist/capitalist society, however it is taken to far then you could end up with something out of a science fiction film such as Minority Report, like the clip below. As a society we have to be careful about such ends and this probably requires some kind of global regulation to make sure that social networks have to work in a ethical way to protect peoples privacy, or people will leave the website in their masses I suspect.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/jan/11/facebook-privacy. Accessed 01/11/2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVPcladS_0k. Accessed 01/11/2011
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ReplyDeleteI think it's interesting to speculate about what regulations would be in place concerning advertising and personal information, especially since it's already quite a contentious issue, I think the regulations would end up being pretty strict.
ReplyDeleteTo touch on what you said about the degree of control we have as to how our information is used, I think something we certainly have little or no control over is what other people post about you, which is something you don't always think about, so I definitely think Facebook is a threat even if you don't have an account. If a friend uploads a picture of you there is no way you can remove the picture unless they physically remove it themselves. I notice that below pictures that you have been 'tagged' in , there is now the option to 'remove from profile' as oppose to 'detag' like it used to be. I don't know if and how you can detag pictures now.
If anyone's thinking about deactivating their account or (somehow) leaving entirely, I think this video makes some quite interesting points, especially concerning the fake social side of things.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UouP8cRYZ8 Accessed 02/11/201
That clip you posted Lucy was quite interesting. Although I did not watch it to the end I identify with some of the things in it and am seriously thinking about culling my list of friends right back.
ReplyDeleteIt's really a contentious issue in terms of our privacy these days with the advent of websites such as twitter and facebok that horde our information and share it willy nilly with advertising companies and other big organisations. The corporate world has masses of data on each and every one of us and if we were to really stop and think about that for 5 or so minutes one day then it may frankly scare us into stopping the use of sites like Facebook and twitter etc.
I hate it when people say they can't live without Facebook. Sometimes I think Facebook is a time-wasting game. The competition within the game has many different elements to it, consisting of: Who has more friends? Who has more photos tagged of them? And if so, who is having the most fun of a time in them? Who is or is not invited to a virtually created event? Who gets the most likes on status updates/photos/witty comments? With considering Facebook as a game, the aim is to manipulate a social networking infrastructure in order to 'win' popularity.
ReplyDeleteIt's also about having time to play the game to its full-extent; the more time you put in, the more you get out of it (responses etc). Facebook- however much one could argue that our generation relies upon it as a necessary mode of contact- is a hobby, a past-time, therefore simply, a way to spend one's time. In comparison, the telephone, despite also being used for social purposes, has a more definite kind of necessity to it because it is a singular entity; you can carry it around in your pocket in case of an emergency. I wonder, however, if there was a similar panic about a change in societal values when the telephone was brought to popularity, and expect that perhaps there was...
That was an interesting video Lucy, and I agree with Eva in terms of certain misguided people attaching too much importance to what is in many ways a massive, massively addictive online game. I used to love facebook but now it annoys me and I don't go on it for days or weeks at a time (which, unfortunately, does place me outside the loop quite a lot).
ReplyDeleteConcerning Sam's original post though, I think you could highlight this point with the interest surrounding superinjunctions, an absurd concept in itself supposedly enforced by the nation's greatest institutions, rendered redundant through social networking sites available to everybody such as Twitter.
I'm looking at you, Ryan Giggs.
ReplyDelete