Agree to these Terms and Conditions
Lets be honest. If you have ever taken the time to read through the fine print of terms and conditions when downloading a new app, software, etc. you’re one of three things.
- A loser
- An academic looking to find a discovery
- Someone who needs a new hobby
When studies such as NPR’s, “Do You Read Terms Of Service Contracts? Not Many Do, Research Shows” find that 98% of participants ended up actually agreeing “giving up their first-born” by pressing agree after a quick scroll to the bottom of a set of terms and conditions they made it should be no surprise. No one has the time for that. However, almost every user of technology will say something along lines that their digital privacy is important to them.
What exactly is digital privacy? Digital privacy is what a user is comfortable sharing within their own consent. Many of us may not be comfortable with what our data is actually being used for. Yet, we always just submit to “agree”. By agreeing we are empowering companies to do whatever they want with data that falls within their terms. Data is powerful and these companies need these tools to make money. Sometimes, this data is not used in the most ethical ways in marketing. According to Levin (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/01/facebook-advertising-data-insecure-teens), Facebook found that it can find mood signs in young users by looking at “internal Facebook data”. From there they would sell advertisement space to companies who are looking for a target market which people are “anxious”, “defeated”, “need a confidence boost”, “useless”, among many other words centered around low self-esteem. Facebook playing upon depressed and mentally ill teens for the purpose to market them products seems rather in conflict to their mission. Which is according to https://investor.fb.com/resources/default.aspx, “Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what’s going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them.” It seems as though helping mentally ill user isn’t necessarily what matters to Facebook after all.
I don’t think people at Facebook are maliciously looking to take advantage of users like this. Putting all this blame on the people behind Facebook is unjust. Regardless of how this data is used it’s usually collected by a set of algorithms. Algorithms can be used for good or bad. They can create beautiful stories such making a video game. Or they can be used in places such as Facebook to find groups. Yet, what if Facebook used this data to help people with mental professionals instead market? It’s not about letting have our data, it’s about companies using our data for the right purpose. Data privacy is important in order to keep user comfortable. This comfort is needed in order to keep a safe, stable, and unbiased community. If not privacy isn’t given then user won’t feel confident to truly express themselves online. The push shouldn’t be on the companies to not have our data but to look to the companies to use our data for good.
