New Comm Tech

This week’s lecture was titled “Censorship/Privacy in Social Media”.

Firstly, it should be mentioned that the mandatory internet filter will not be happening.  With the current political climate as it is, the scheme has almost no chance of making it through Parliament, as the LNP have taken the party stance to oppose it.  The chances of any sort of blacklist legislature making it through the House of Representatives is very unlikely, let alone the Senate. So, for now, we can sleep tight knowing that the Australian Federal Police will actually be catching paedophiles and not just pretending that they don’t exist.

Issues of privacy in regards to social networking sites has been a hot-issue this year, with Facebook receiving a lot of backlash for their constantly changing privacy policy and terms of service.  Consumer groups allege that the company shares user information with third parties.  This is why, for example, Facebook users are sometimes targeted with very specific advertising from the website.  The information is passed on by the site’s admin to said third party, so that they can gather data.

Facebook is also notoriously tricky with letting users delete their accounts, purposely for this very reason.  The site tries to trick users by only “disabling” their accounts and not permanently deleting them.  Finding the method in which to do the latter is very difficult too: when I deleted my page a year ago, the only place where I could find in order to do so was linked from the Facebook’s FAQ section.  However, the site still retains your page from anywhere to 14-21 days after you request to be removed.  They even send you frequent emails, trying to get you to log back in.  Because once you log back in (even once) they consider your request for profile deletion to be rescinded.  The whole business reminds me of a drug pusher: you try to quit, but they get on you and on you until BAM… you’re lying in an alley, OD’ing on Farmville.

However, it begs the question: just who is to blame here?  Is it the people who just click “yes” when they see the phrase “I agree to the Terms of Service” without thinking, and then go ahead and post all of their personal information online?  Or is it Facebook themselves?  Sure, they’re selling out the privacy (and in some cases safety) of millions of people in order to make money?  However, they’re doing so by exploiting the ignorance of the users who don’t have the common sense not to post their details/dirty laundry online.