Do we have any privacy when it comes to social media?
Social media is an endless simultaneous loop of information. Information on whats happening in the world today, yesterday and tomorrow. Information on our environment, our legal activities and of course politics. An abundance of information on celebrities, socialites, YouTubers, and our general society. Social media is everywhere and effects each and every one of our personal lives.
PRIVATE, lives.
Do we really own privacy?
How do we control who can see our posts and what they can see? Of course there are your general privacy settings like having a private account where you can decide who follows you. But what if more information is becoming public, that we don't know about? This is a serious problem. A breech of our privacy and our personal information.
Created to extend ourselves across all communication levels around the world, Facebook rapidly became the largest social media platform to ever exist. Allowing people to share their own thoughts, opinions and perspectives on political, environmental, societal issues, etc. In March 2018, Facebook had its worst day yet. Political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica obtained personal data from over 87 million Facebook users without their consent and used it for political advertising, namely in the 2016 U.S. Presidential elections but also in the Brexit Vote Leave Campaign.
The scandal caused Facebook to face many unsatisfied users that personally was affected by the data breach, but also other users mainly concerned about the scandal. The organization, Facebook, faced many complications, including legal obligations which were caused by the lack of users privacy protection. The biggest challenge by far for Facebook was gaining the trust back of its stakeholders, to further rebuild the organization. Facebook created a personality test called "this is your digital life", users agreed that data was going to be collected from their answers of the test. The information collected allowed to build the users psychographic profile according to their openness, consciousness, extraversion, agreeableness and the neuroticism levels (the OCEAN model). Adding this app to their Facebook page allowed the people behind it to easily compile profile information, such as likes, comments, and for some, private messages, while also gaining access to their age and status. This data breach didn’t only affect the people in use of the app, but also all their Facebook friends. A worldwide protest happened with the hashtag #deletefacebook, causing Facebook to lose 7% of their share price and its market value fell for more than $36 billion.
Mark Zuckerberg broke his silence 5 days after the scandal was announced, by making a public statement on his Facebook page “We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can’t then we don’t deserve to serve you”. Consumers believed Zuckerberg waited too long to make an announcement about the scandal and should have owned it and apologised when the break was public.
Privacy allows people to manage their reputations. How humanity is judged by each other affecting individuals overall well-being. Privacy is also about respecting people. Knowing that if an individual wants to keep something private, it is disrespectful to intrude their wishes. If personal data is given to the wrong person, that allows them to have control over the consumer and in some circumstances can be done in a harmful way. The Facebook and Cambridge Analytica case affected many of their users. The mental strain on knowing someone unknown has accessed their personal information. Mass legal action was launched against Facebook for misuse of information from almost one million users in England and Wales. This case will argue that by taking data without consent, the firm failed to meet their legal obligations under the Data Protection Act 1998.
Since 2018, Facebook has somewhat built their reputation back by ensuring all consumers how safe their personal information is.
They made sure privacy is a very big factor of their organization and allowed consumers to physically see that, by creating a 'Privacy check-up' feature which allows all users to update their profiles and secure their identities and personal data.
As Cambridge Analytica faded into the background, growing concerns about Facebook giving 'special data deals' to device makers, and organizations like Goggle tracking peoples location when they already turned their locations off.
"There has been a growing recognition that companies can no longer be left to regulate themselves, and some states have begun to act on it. Vermont implemented a new law that requires data brokers which buy and sell data from third parties to register with the state. In California, a law is set to go into effect in January that would, among other things, give residents the ability to opt out of having their data sold. Multiple states have introduced similar bills in the past few months alone. On Capitol Hill, Congress is considering the contours of a federal data protection law—though progress is, as always in Washington, slow-going." (WIRED, Issie Lapowsky 2019).
This case provides insight into how social media is ultimately the biggest form of communication and is also one of the biggest parts of our lives. It controls what we see, hear, learn and communicate. The world evolves around media. The biggest concern about media, is, are we safe in it all?
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Issie Lapowsky. (2019). How Cambridge Analytica Sparked the Great Privacy Awakening. Available: https://www.wired.com/story/cambridge-analytica-facebook-privacy-awakening / . Last accessed 10/04.
Issie Lapowsky. (2019). How Tim Cook’s Data Broker Registry Might Actually Work. Available: https://www.wired.com/story/tim-cook-data-broker-registry/ . Last accessed 10/04.
Jackson Lewis. (2019). State Law Developments in Consumer Privacy. Available: https://www.natlawreview.com/article/state-law-developments-consumer-privacy . Last accessed 11/04.
unknown author . (unknown publication ). What is Privacy?. Available: https://www.oaic.gov.au/privacy/your-privacy-rights/what-is-privacy . Last accessed 11/04 .
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unknown author. (2018). Facebook Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2018 Results. Available: https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2019/Facebook-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2018-Results/default.aspx . Last accessed 10/04.
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