I have always been aware that what I access via the net is being recorded to a certain extent however, I have never been too convinced that it would one day come back to bite me. I don’t expect to ever be a government official nor stalked and extorted. But through further study, learning that Google and/or Facebook create a profile of the user in order for marketers to market profile specific content, it can be a little invasive.
I did further research in my own time only to stumble upon an article written in 2011! I had no idea it had been going on for so long and that I have only in recent months become aware of it. I am not sure about the current situation but according to Joel Stein, two fifths of a cent is the price payed by advertisers for our personal information collated using tracking devices like cookies. So no matter where you are in the world they will too will know.
So, If I know that this is the case then why do I use Facebook? “To stay connected to friends overseas,” is my usual reply but now I rarely use it for that. If anything it has become a piece of comfort and a material of identity which is pathetic I know but I’ll keep on keeping on. One area that may come back to bite me would be the political shares I make frequently regarding the current government and issues world wide that I realise my friends in a bubble are not aware of.
But besides the privacy issues we face from market miners problems found in areas such as China are becoming more relevant in our own homes as discussed by blogger Michael Anti at a Ted X talk.
https://www.ted.com/talks/michael_anti_behind_the_great_firewall_of_china
Basically, the world wide issue of freedom in relation to access to the web is becoming more apparent. Censoring “sensitive” information is popular in countries all over the world. But what defines “sensitive” transcends world wide. Pakistan is a recent example of censoring information following the condemnation of teenagers who created a video to Pharrell Williams ‘Happy’. Then there is China who censors what can and can not be googled. But Michael Anti is defying China’s control of censorship by using the tool of blogging to act out his freedom of expression.
This gets one thinking however whether new communications is a modern day form of freedom and expression or is it a tool of power used by the states… or is it both and if so which is more powerful?
This Ted talk is certainly a wake up call to how lucky I am to be able to sit here without a hint of fear of persecution from my own government simply for expressing my rightful views.
Anti, M. (2012, June) Michael Anti: Behind the Great Firewall of China,
[Video file} Retrieved from
Stein, J (2011, March 10). Data Mining: How companies now know everything about you. Time. Received August 6, 2014, from http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2058205-6,00.html
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