Blog Post #3 - Surveillance Capital

For this week's blog post, we were given the ability to discuss any topic relevant to the course at hand. What I have chosen to speak upon is the issue of the social media platform Facebook and how individuals who use this app are unaware that we share our information with third party individuals. When surfing through social media platforms such as Facebook, there are constantly advertisements that pop up and grasp our attention. Whether it be for an online clothing store, or for the newest album that has been released. Often times it seems to me that Facebook of even advertisements on YouTube demonstrate things that I have searched myself. For instance, if I were searching up where to find a adidas shoes, the next time I would log into Facebook I would see an ad for these same shoes.


In such a case it makes me wonder how these sites are gaining information about my searches on other platforms. It seems as though all Facebook's third parties have the ability to see what searches I make and view personal information. In class we learnt that our public communication and private communication are intertwined when social media gets a hold of it. Social media is also said to be a surveillance capital that continuously monitors each and everyone's movement. Signing up for social media platforms such as Facebook seems to give them the ability to cling on and persistently search our private information. Social does not feel as though we are being watched, instead we are happy that there are advertisements shown that peak our interests. However, society must be aware of the fact that even when we are on YouTube or search the web, third parties are constantly observing us.

Comments

  1. Olivia HeinsOctober 21, 2018 at 9:48 AM

    I think this is definitely an important issue to be aware of and it is starting to be discussed more often with recent issues regarding people's information being sold. It can be argued that by signing up for these platforms as you mention we are essentially providing our consent to have our information used in anyway that the owners please since we do have the choice not to use Facebook altogether. I do however think that it is concerning to have so much information about myself out there and not really know who has access to it or how it is being used. I have a lot of privacy settings on my Facebook but that does not stop Facebook itself from selling my information to third party corporations. In class we have watched and read about numerous people who's lives revolve around their social media accounts and they are therefore obviously not concerned about the potential privacy threats that come along with this.

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