Assignment 4
Assignment 4
Media law and Ethics
Maya Al Akhwan
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Privacy is the ability to control what people see about you, and in that there is power and a feeling of security. It is nice to be able to share on social media but without privacy it is not as enjoyable. People have to know that the information they are sharing is private to them and only them. Privacy is related to autonomy for example: if I uploaded one picture of mine on Facebook then who gives Facebook the right to manufacture more than one picture of me? Thus privacy enables us to live more comfortably in the world and produce relationships that are based on truth and selective choices of what we share public. The ability to selectively reveal information provides security. Privacy also gives freedom to learn, grow and experiment. Privacy protects our dignity and self-pride. Privacy of self is personal and emotional relief.
However, freedom has never been completely free and here also, privacy is not really private. Social media companies, phone companies and search engines are all changing the concept of privacy because nothing we do is really private. With every touch of a screen and with every click of a mouse we are contributing into the growing of the world of surveillance social media companies sort us everyday into categories, we have no control over how intimate are lives are. Which raises this question, are you still the soul owner of your life? They track what we post, capitalize it then sell it. In the modern age we do not live in proprietary claims anymore. For example: we say that this is I on social media but after all a photo is materiality and materiality is digital information. Which undermines the core meaning of privacy. Some aspects of our lives should remain private.
And we as human beings cant help but feed this system of surveillance simply by using social media on an everyday basis. “ A lot can be learned about a person through the combination of massive amounts of data and the use of sophisticated analytical techniques” J. solove’s study on perspective of privacy.. And the more they know about us the more they can manipulate us. Data collection is not a new phenomenon, what is new here is the amount of data collected and how private it is. For example, the more time I spend on Facebook or on a search engine the more I am tracked. My life is being mapped out based on what I search. And thus I am also contributing to the making of ads and their revenue since they appear on my personal page. For example, the ads on Facebook are 85% of Facebook’s revenue. These ads are a type of harassment on social media because first of all I did not request to see them, second of all ads manipulate the mind of the viewer into buying an item at times when he may be busy doing something else on the internet. “a state has no business telling a man sitting alone in his own house, what books he may read or what films he may watch. Our whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men’s minds” J. Solove. It is a fundamental change to live where our moves can be tracked in depth. At the end of the ay larger companies reduce us to risk behaviors, likes, dislikes and that are what is really threatening. No one is as much as they are on social media. We are all more than that. So who gives them the right to view us in such a narrow horizon? And it becomes highly problematic when it comes to politics. For example, lets suppose some of my political views are on Facebook but not all of them. Who says I can be misguided and misjudged and narrowed to these views? Political opinions are very wide in perspective and reducing us to what is shared on Facebook or any social media application for that matter is a violation of personal freedom. Privacy should protect us from being misguided out of context. “Privacy is rarely lost in one fell swoop. It is usually eroded over time; little bits dissolving almost imperceptibly until we finally begin to notice how much is gone.” J. solove’s study on perspective of privacy.
Daniel J. Solove Born on 1972 (age43) , Washington university (A.B), Yale law school (J.D)
References:
Solove, J. Perspective on privacy.
