Are you really safe online?
Online privacy is important for a lot of reasons, but especially because many of us do not understand how our information is being collected and used. For example, when we share a photo on Instagram, we don’t know if that photo will help construct facial recognition technologies that will help identify us at some point in the future. The Internet Society spoke at length about the fact that not all companies use all the same policies, they are different across different countries, and that the internet is often geared towards profits over safety. All of these issues raise concerns over internet safety. Personally, I am not a very private person in my day-to-day life, but online I really don’t share much. Mistakes are often temporary in the real world, but on the internet, they will likely live forever. This impacts job opportunities, relationships, and the image of you that is shared with the world at large.
After reading on the Pew Research Center page, I don’t think I am in favor of algorithms and their exponential growth. I don’t know if it is truly that concept I struggle with, or if I am concerned about a for-profit internet in general. I try not to spend too much time on my phone, but when I go too long without it I feel myself looking for it. This is by design, and that is of major concern for me. It brings to mind images of Wall-E, people so unaware of the world around them because they have constructed one digitally. I also worry about jobs, if robots are doing the jobs humans once did, where will all those people work? And what sort of role will that have on socialization? On the other hand, I was interested to read about some of the benefits the algorithms could have on the world, like finding environmentally efficient strategies and helping health care become accessible. Overall, I don’t want to be part of a money-making equation with no regards for my being, but I don’t think there is a way to avoid that in the world we currently live in.
For my additional resource, I read “How the Instagram Algorithm Works (And Where Your Strategy Needs to Shift).” I was pretty far into reading it before I realized it was marketed towards businesses, but I still found it to be a pretty interesting read. I think more than anything it was explaining concepts most young people (who are active on social media) already understand. What I didn’t know from before is that it is not just based off of time and followers, it is also based off of how interested you seem in that person’s profile. So, if I spend a couple minutes a week looking at someone on Instagram, I am more likely to see their posts even if they are a couple days old. I also learned that business accounts get analytics sent to them about a whole host of interactions users make with their posts. I think this would be really helpful to small businesses who are still understanding how to reach their audience through social media.
