What does the world REALLY know about you?
I regularly read the excellent online “newspaper” Daily Maverick. Many of the articles are thought provoking, and although I disagree with some of the conclusions, they certainly give a new spin to many current events and some good political analysis. This last week an article caught my attention: “What Google and Facebook know about you”. Good question.
Many of us engage on a daily basis on various social media platforms. I am sure many of us also use Google fairly regularly – looking for something? “Google it”. It is truly amazing to see what’s available to us on the web through a search engine like Google. We live in a society and world which makes use of the web – through engines such as Google – and social media platforms – like Facebook and twitter – more and more.
Some people have chosen to steer clear of the web or have as little to do with it as possible. Others bemoan its existence and regularly make snide remarks about those of us who are part of the online community. Sadly, many in our country are excluded because they simple do not have access due to infrastructural problems or economic disadvantages. We cannot play down the fact that more and more we are shifting to the web. I notice that some schools are moving towards making use of digital text books. We are giving more and more power to digital networks and relying on them to run our lives – whether we like it or not!
For those of us who do engage and rely on these networks it’s important to know what else might be going on – for example: are you aware of the public profile you have? Do people know who they are really interacting with or do you put on a different face on social media platforms? I have come across a few people in my own parish community who certainly seem very different online to “real” life. Luckily I knew them in “real” life first! More importantly: Do you know what has been collected and “banked” about you on the World Wide Web? The temptation to think you are anonymous is great, are you really?
Rebecca Davis reports how Tim Berners-Lee (“inventor” of the internet) raised concerns that sites like Facebook had begun to chip away at one of the founding principles of the web by not allowing users to extract information they put on the web. She says Berners-Lee wrote a paper in Scientific American in which he said: “The more you enter, the more you become locked in. Your social networking site becomes a central platform – a closed silo of content, and one that does not give you full control over your information in it.”
In The Guardian last week Berners-Lee urged web users to demand their data so that it could not be used for undesirable ends – “making sure an insurance company, even if its insurance agent happens to be a friend of a friend of yours on Facebook, won’t use that information to set your premium.” Do you know what people know about you and how, perhaps, you have been targeted by companies/campaigns because of the information you have put on Facebook? It’s a little unnerving. Google, apparently, will give you access to all your information straight away – Facebook is slightly more cagey Davis says.
I do know that Google records where you have been and what you have searched for. They can, apparently, give you a history of your web searches and even reveal common themes and threads in your searches. Google uses your online work and browsing to tailor ads for you – they pop up and you think hmmm… interesting! …but Google has chosen them for you! What information might Facebook, Google, YouTube etc have on you? Ever wondered about that or attempted an expose on your digital self? You might want to check it out, as Davis says “… adjusting your searches for the eyes of posterity”
There is another important question we could (should?) ask: does my online activity reveal the profile of a disciple of Jesus Christ…?
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