About a year ago, I was at my parents house and a commercial came on for Amazon’s Echo. My dad, being very opinionated, went on a verbal rampage about Echo products and how they record everything they listen to. He blamed home smart devices for the decline of everyone’s privacy. He wasn’t happy when I reminded him his cell phone listens to him all the time and that wasn’t any different. Imagine my surprise when several weeks later my dad became a proud owner of several Google Home Minis. It turns out his issue was less about “privacy” and more about “not letting Amazon own his life.” This makes sense when you think of privacy as control of the data you generate and not privacy as being free from being observed or bothered as I was thinking of it.
When it comes to information or data privacy, I am one of the many people who feel resigned to not having any privacy. I know that every time I swipe my card to buy something, the store records my data and my bank records my data. I also know they use my data for marketing and sometimes they sell it. But, I have to buy stuff and I don’t carry cash. I have a smartphone and I know it’s listening to me right now as I talk and type. But I don’t turn voice activated functions off because I don’t think it matters in the big picture. There is no data privacy in today’s world.
When I think about social media privacy, I think about whether or not I am safe online. The answer, unfortunately, is no. I have no idea if the people I have “friended” are actually the people who I think they are. I know too many people who have had their social media identities stolen. Privacy settings on social media are limited. For example, profile pictures are public and it is easy for someone to copy and use your picture to create an account for themselves and pretend to be you.
A few years ago, I was less concerned about internet privacy and ended up the target of an internet stalker who used social media as their stalking platform. They friended me as someone I knew, but had not talked to in a while, and then proceeded to invade my life. A few months ago, my safety concerns reemerged when someone stole my mom’s Facebook identity. One morning at work, my phone beeped and informed me my mom was on messenger so I started chatting with her. It wasn’t until about 5 minutes in when I realized it was 9am and there was no way my mom would be awake. I called my parents house and sure enough, she was asleep. Her privacy settings had gotten “reset” to global after the last upgrade and she had been posting publicly. This allowed someone to match her personality by reading her posts and imitating her.
Since then, I have learned to make my social media accounts as private as possible and I never friend anyone until I talk to them first and verify the account is theirs. Since everything I did to hide my presence used “privacy settings,” I determined that privacy was my issue when really it is safety. Privacy settings can not guarantee our safety online. Privacy settings create isolation which is the opposite of the online communities social media creates.
As I started my MA program, I realized during my second class that social media would be important for my studies. I have been working on finding a way to be open on social media professionally while still retaining the safety of having my personal social media closed. I am sure the balance between safety, privacy and community will not be easy to find, but, I will find it.