Sharing as Surveillance- Blog Post #3


During yesterday’s class, the concept of sharing was discussed. Living in a day and age where 3.1 billion people on the planet have access to a social media account, it is no surprise that we are much more connected across the globe. But what do we sacrifice in order to have this worldwide connection?
As stated in class, “social media are a set of internet based and network communication platforms… we use a business model of a database that is built by its own users and enables convergence of public and private communication.” Whoever joins in on having an account whether it’s on Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and so on, they are willingly sharing their information. The question is, who is the information being shared to?
Well, apart from the obvious answer which is those who you follow on said accounts, your information is also being sold to a vast amount of businesses and analytical companies who track what you do, ‘like’, post, etc.
To be indirectly observed as such is agreeing to be under surveillance although it may not seem so drastic. Every time you search something on the internet, e.g. “cute cat memes” or “black t-shirt,” whatever it may be, that will be saved to the database in order for advertising companies for example to be able to personalize their ads towards you.
In my opinion, the very term ‘sharing’ in today’s society has shifted its meaning towards an indirect form of ‘surveillance’.

Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 20, 2018 at 7:15 PM

    We spoke of the four ways that sharing is manifested with one of them being a particular set of business models and corporate practise. Facebook is a perfect example of a free social media site that is essentially making money off of us through the datafication of our interactions with the platform and the internet. When agreeing to the terms and conditions many of us don't realize that we are being used indirectly by other companies for our information and it comes as a surprise to us when we many of our advertisements suit our needs perfectly.

    We can then ask ourselves, are Facebook and other social media account really free?

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