After watching the provided TED Talks, I was left stunned, I never truly thought about how little privacy we have when it comes to technology. These TED talks left me frustrated, we hear people add commentary about how our privacy or lack thereof is only going to get worse with social media, that companies are taking our information without us truly knowing they are doing it. I have always made jokes about how I talked about a certain shirt and I start seeing ads about it immediately after talking about it (I'm sure I'm going to start getting a bunch of ads for shirts once I post this), but now I know how scary it really is, so many of my social media platforms know what I am looking at! Why do they need to know this?
I continued my research on online privacy and was led to The Harvard Gazette, and what I read truly shocked me: "In April, Congress voted to allow internet service providers to collect and sell their customers’ browsing data." I did not know that Congress voted to allow this, why should it be allowed, what good is it doing? When you sign up for a new social media network you have to agree to the terms and agreements, if you don't you can not use that platform, but why do we have to accept the terms and agreements, why don't we have the option to not agree? Why do I have to agree to let these random companies keep my information, I'm sure they wouldn't give me theirs if I asked for it.
I was born in a time where social media was beginning to boom, I don't really truly remember a time without social media, so I didn't know any better than to just click the button to let me sign up for Facebook or Instagram, I didn't understand what I was agreeing to and even if I read the terms and agreements, I am sure I still wouldn't fully understand what I was agreeing to. There has to be people who read all the fine print and still agree to use the site, but why would you do that knowing your information is going to be taken? Seems a little, scratch that, a lot sketchy to me.
From now on, I plan on reading the terms and agreements before I let random websites access my information. I don't share anything that can do any damage to me, but it still is terrifying knowing that these random millionaires can know whatever they want about me. I know to be more cautious.
Sources:
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/08/when-it-comes-to-internet-privacy-be-very-afraid-analyst-suggests/
https://clario.co/blog/live-secured/what-is-online-privacy/
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