Debating Communities and Networks XIV

“The amount of user-generated media uploaded to the web is expanding rapidly and it is beyond the capabilities of any human to sift through it all to see which media impacts our privacy.” Italy, 2012. In this essay will explore to what extent privacy is still being respected and part of modern social media adding to the fact that privacy and data surveillance relating to online identity, online network and communities through social media stream. 2005 studies have shown that social media to help people worldwide to connect with each other and being able to communicate among themselves using the web yet, the fact that the SNS was disclosing information about each other to use mainly under purpose to use data insight to be more consencious about reaching more people and be closer to what clients we’re expecting. “Articles argued that individuals were (perhaps inadvertently) disclosing information that might be inappropriate for some audiences, such as future employers.” Acquisti (2005). Nowadays, new firms are emerging under profitable purpose to collect data out for social media companies and keep it under use to be able to analyse for a better use of social media to be able to categorized customers thus increasing the level of audience of the modernized social platform. In the recent years ongoing as per during the process of before and after the Covid-19 has been very amplified to another level reaching out advantages and disadvantages through the process this, has caused a subsequential impact on each other’s identity. Identity for instance, is a principal reason of the for the promoting the dis-integration of our selves. Brusseau, J. (2019). In a sense, dis-integration of our selves will result in building the new facelift of your identity towards social media. Can we trust social identity today? One really looked different compared to what they build on the web resulting in false data provider for big companies retrieving data. Companies as Cambridge Analytica are big enterprise with the main role of retrieving data on the net and analyse them so that the build a strategic marketing features for companies to be more fluent and reach more customers. Late news reveal that strong social media companies are struggling over the retrieval of data legally to construct their marketing strategy as it is more and more difficult to get usable data over the internet resulting in false data base of their strategy, some are willing to go
beyond the limit barriers as for instance, the following trial of Mark Zuckerberg’s against the States and the CEO of TikTok Sou Zi Chew grilled by the US lawmakers.
Research done in 2015 reveals that at the highest point of the Web 2.0 era Facebook was counting 79% of internet users and 39% were using (nstagram 2017). Categorized as the fastest growing social media websites due to its rapid popularity among teenagers and its acquisition by Mark Zuckerberg. What does these social media streams have in common is the fact that you, users need to build and entertain an online profile identity to firstly be able to get the most out of it. Recent studies investigating Instagram use from the U&GT perspective shown different motivations such as entertainment, convenience, self-expression, surveillance (Alhabash and Ma 2017; Sheldon and Bryant 2016). Knowing that Facebook’s giant director promotes the ethics of an integrated identity relating to the fact that they need effective big data collection to be able to make the good running of their companies such as Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp. The building of online identity is clearly a fundamental point for nearly every human living in the modern world of today, with the digitalization of nearly every single tool whether at school, university or big companies you need to have a web base profile to be able to handle your life if I can mention. Online Identity can be very tricky as there are no barriers, you have a full access other what you want to create virtually and there is no law on Earth that will stop you from create your avatar whether exaggerated or realistic. False identity will result in false data retrieving for companies reaching out to data to build statistics for being able to transfer these into a well established strategy for social media companies for instance, Instagram can be used for surveillance/knowledge about others, documentation, coolness, and creativity (Sheldon and Bryant 2016) and data retrieve by your online identity will gather information like for example if you spend a lot of likes based on football and cars, your primary accounts, videos, images and information will be primarily about these two theme. This example, was the main work beside the curtain that big data companies be doing to keep us entertained behind our screens for hours without getting tired of the content being shown as, the statistics are calculated for user to be satisfied. Perhaps that strategy of big data seems to have different outcomes as since social media has bring along billions of people interconnected together, they started to gather some false researches based on false online identity creation. The main reason that individuals feel the need to create a virtual identity for themselves as well as ‘the spiral of transformation’, that is, the creation period goes ahead of the internet to reach the real life.” Uğur Gündüz. (2017). Users somehow started to create the life they always wanted on social media profile compared to the real life they have, the catfish expression being mainly use for this type of profile. Lovelock, M. (2017). Online identity is the fuel needed to keep data protection unit and big data experts up to date with their statistics and render however, where are those data on our personal traits, life stored?
Online identity is the foundation to the success of SNS nowadays, after the global pandemic the use of social media industry rise consistently and is expected to touch the USD 89.489 billion by the end of 2026. Streaming device on market (2021). In other words, this means that, by the end of 2026 there the top 5 social media network worldwide would have access on information about more than three quarter of inhabitants on Earth, all this power in the hands of one figure is too much power. Information access and control is seen as a power resource Pettigrew, A. M. (1972). This referred to absolute power even above politicians and billionaires on the planet this may not be always the case but absolute power tends to corrupts absolutely. The threat towards network individualism seems more important as since the creation of the web 2.0 every click, every hyperlink leave a data trail and it is stored on a server ready to be used formal and legally for research as stated by Cambridge Analytica however, what assurance do we have that tomorrow this would not be against us? “ learning identity and additional information across disparate datasets, as well as a foundation for methods that enable data holders to share information with guarantees of anonymity.” Privacy, Technology (2005). Data is being stored on a host company for example as Facebook, Google and other companies are collected and mined by them for example Cambridge Analytica is one of the main company to have host data transferred by another giant concerning social network service based on research they do for election of politicians like Ex-President of the US, Mr Obama in the past. “Cambridge Analytica, a British consulting firm, was able to collect data from as many as 87 million Facebook users without their consent” Shaw, D. (2018). Facebook denied all implication alongside the British firm Cambridge Analytica as it stated that he shared access to 320 000 Facebook profile based upon which the Psychologist Alexander Kogan developed an application then sold it to Cambridge Analytica, this was an illegal form of usage of data because for instance, it exploits privacy of each and single users. This manoeuvre was discovered by a former Cambridge Analytica worker who was suspended for exposing the fact stated above, on the other hand, how many illegal manoeuvre was not discovered or exposed we would not have been aware of such violation of our terms and agreement. WhatsApp updates in 2021 makes them lose millions of user as they were updating their terms and agreement as to use private message whether groups or personal for data insight usage for research and greeted by a third party host. Companies started to thrill out and started leaving the application as they were using this during the covid-19 pandemic as a way of text message group to provide update about the company including profit and revenues plus strategies for the good running of their firm. WhatsApp encryption controversy (2021, Sep 13). Not long after this controversy they introduce the WhatsApp encryption text controversy where this type of chat would not be accessible to usage data insight and that this can be used by any of us safely, however statistics proved out that companies preferred to used other secure platforms in order to be more on the safe side than to trust data encryption and the giants of SNS.
“Using social media has become not only a privilege but a necessity nowadays.” Alam,s Hafin (2019). As mentioned above in the essay, the use of social media network has become a necessity as for instance, the digitalisation of a company towards network will refer to the business making a lot towards e-commerce and diversification towards newly established social network also to look more trendy and ahead of the competitor which will increase his word of mouth as a positioning strategy. Newly established social network and serious competitor to Mark’s business is TikTok and its CEO Shou Zi Chew. Tiktok is pretty different as a platform, not based on chat put mostly on sharing video and so on, analysing his level of privacy, they offer more comprehensive user protection from different jurisdictions.TikTok seems to use the same ways of prospect of increase the number of users by data insight, however it was not a threat in the United States until we started to face the goe-politcal tension in between these two countries for instance, China and US. “TikTok shifted from being an ambitious digital platform to a state-centred security issue.” Miao, W., Huang, D., & Huang, Y. (2023). The recent investigations pledged that TikTok is sharing his data usage such as browsing history, location and biometrics identification with China’s government in a way to get more information about the United States. ABCTV (Friday, March 17, 2023). The issue is that there is always a need for something going wrong that is, a breach of data or tensions between countries so that users and inhabitants figure out that they are being watch and followed by the modern SNS.
In relation to all the streams mentioned, in the essay that is, social network services, identity and data protection related to privacy in the modern world, this is clearly not what was expected from a certain perspective as for instance, we knew that later all that information given on the web 2.0 was serving a purpose, users were just expected that it was for to improve to better application or better insight. However, actions speaks louder than expectations, examples cited and many more prove that data insight given under terms and privacy are not being respected and are being given to several industries without our consent. The coming of AI- artificial intelligence will gather all the information about each other and it seems that instead of facilitating our life, it will get only darker as an enemy who knows everything on everyone will be hard to overcome.


















References:

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Pettigrew, A. M. (1972). Information Control as a Power Resource. Sociology, 6(2), 187–204. https://doi.org/10.1177/003803857200600202

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Whistleblower: Facebook Suspended Me for Exposing Cambridge Analytica: The former Cambridge Analytica employee alleged the Trump-linked firm harvested Facebook data from millions of users for electoral purposes. (2018). Retrieved April 4, 2023