Big Brother: Is there a place of privacy on social networks?
Alexandra Savina
Seven years ago, Mark Zuckerberg saidthat the desire to protect personal space has ceased to be the norm for us: with the advent of social networks, people are increasingly spreading personal information to the public. “When I started working in my dorm room at Harvard, everyone asked me:“ Who wants to post information about themselves on the Internet? Why do I need a website? ”He said.“ But in the last five to six years, blogs have become incredibly popular and there were all these services where people talk about themselves. "
In 2017, the process seems to be moving in the opposite direction: unlike what it was ten years ago, at the dawn of the popularity of social networks, users are in no hurry to lay out everything - or, at least, try not to do it so openly. For example, 24% of the HeadHunter survey participants locked up accounts on all social networks - and another 32% close at least some of them. Half of those who choose closeness do it because they consider social networks to be their personal space, another 16% because they have too much personal information on social networks.
In mid-October, The New York Times published rules on the use of social networks for employees. The publication acknowledges that in the modern world, journalists should not use social networks - but they believe that the case should be approached responsibly. In the Times manual there is a place for items as reasonably logical (for example, not to use your account to complain about a product or service - because of working in the media they will pay particular attention to you), and more stringent ones: for example, journalists and editors you can not even enter into closed groups on Facebook, if they adhere to the "extreme" point of view. The Times journalist should be as impartial as possible, he should not be agitating, discuss politics and take sides in the issues that the publication tries to cover objectively - since everything he says can be automatically regarded as the point of view of his publication.
To believe that on the Internet now we can be completely independent, naive. The statement of a person is often perceived as the point of view of his company: remember the sexist post about the vacancy, which was published by the head of the Penny Lane Personnel department, Ella Mikhailova - even if such methods do not support such methods in the personnel agency, it seems to people that this is the norm for the company. But if everything is understandable with racism, sexism, homophobia and other types of discrimination (they gradually cease to be perceived as the norm both online and offline), then all other cases are submitted to the "gray zone". Can we now openly express our opinions on the Web - especially if, as in the case of The New York Times, only neutral views are welcomed? Cases in which employees are dismissed due to actions on social networks are not uncommon. One of the last and loudest occurred a year ago when journalist Julia Ioffe was fired from Politico for rude tweet about Ivanka Trump - shortly before that, Ioffe announced that she was going to go to The Atlantic, but because of the scandal, the editors decided to speed up the process.
Deeds that do not comply with the ethical code of the company could have caused dismissal before - but now we ourselves can easily tell about them
According to HeadHunter, 76% of Russian employers surveyed by them view the social networks of candidates. Before interviewing, potential management can check how often you post something on social networks, evaluate your subscriptions (are you interested in what is happening in the industry, or just watch videos with cats) and if you talk about work and your projects, how sociable you are and how you spend your free time. It is believed that networking without social networks today is also impossible: business cards are no longer needed, because they have been replaced with lists of friends and contacts, and industry leaders can be watched without getting up from the couch. A paradoxical situation arises: on the one hand, silence in social networks seems suspicious and must be avoided by all means, on the other hand, it turns out that each of our words must be carefully verified: we can only say that we are not afraid to show our parents, colleagues or boss.
Cal Newport in the column for The New York Times and in the TED lecture advises to quit social networks: in his opinion, they do more harm than good, and the time we spend looking at the news feed and establishing contacts would be worth spending on direct duties: "They (social networks. - Ed.) take time and distract your attention from work that really matters - you do it instead of convincing the world that you yourself have a value. "
True, this approach seems unrealistic: it is unlikely that we will be able to completely abandon all accounts in social networks. Even minimal restrictions irritate many: social networks, conceived as a place where you can tell friends, relatives and acquaintances about your life that you don’t meet in person, have now become a public field. In some areas this situation is perceived more easily: we all know that the person with whom we went on a date, probably followed our accounts, and are ready for what he can understand that we don’t approach each other.
In the case of work, everything is different. Not everyone is ready in his free time on his page to talk about work - and this does not mean that a person does not like what he does. Many believe that posts in social networks do not characterize them as a specialist - after all, these are different areas and different settings. Nevertheless, social networks have changed the rules of the game. Deeds that did not comply with the ethical code of the company could have caused dismissal before, but if it was easier to hide parts of our life before, now we can easily tell about them. It is not surprising that social networks are looking for “red flags”: subscriptions and likes can sometimes say more about us than we think - and what we would like.
In addition to ethics and relations with the management of the social network, we are faced with other issues. The main one is security: if quite a lot is known about combating fraud on the Internet (most likely, you know that you don’t need to leave a credit card number without a secure connection), then what about the fact that we upload data to the Internet, someone else can take advantage - from intruders to the state - while it is decidedly incomprehensible.
This month, the US Department of Homeland Security began checking data from social networks and search queries of those who immigrate to the United States - including those who have a residence permit, and naturalized citizens. And although the ministry claims there is nothing new in these measures, many are worried: attorney Adam Schwartz considers this a violation of his right to privacy and freedom of speech, and businessman Afif Gannum, originally from Kuwait, has published a column “Trump wants to collect information on immigrants’ social networks , like me)". In Russia, there is a “spring package”, and in China, according to Human Rights Watch, they are preparing a large-scale database of biometric population data: the government is working on a system that automatically recognizes voices in telephone and any other conversations.
Getting rid of the feeling of constant surveillance is really difficult. The other day, Moscow school teachers were obliged to monitor the social networks of schoolchildren - they are recommended to “follow the Algorithm of monitoring social networks to identify facts of the involvement of minors in the activities of antisocial communities”. This happens not only in Russian schools: for example, the leadership of one of the best English private schools has admitted that it monitors students in social networks, checking whether they criticize the school. Four years ago, the leadership of the same school collected fingerprints of students without the consent of their parents.
Anyone who has ever encountered an intrusive contextual advertising banner knows that any data that we drive from the keyboard does not disappear without a trace. Because of the feeling that information about us can be accessed by those for whom it is not intended, and the risk of hacking, many users choose silence. According to the analysis of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration of the United States (NTIA), more and more Americans fear for their safety on the Net - 45% of families using the Internet, because of this, have stopped conducting financial transactions on the Net, buying goods, sharing information on social networks, express opinions on controversial issues or talk about politics.
How today's children look on social networks is now decided by their parents, and there is no guarantee that they will like this image as an adult.
The concept of privacy on the web is not limited to photos and posts that we deliberately post. Any small action that we perform without thinking can hurt us - for example, in 2010, 7,500 customers agreed to sell the soul to the store, because they did not read the conditions with which they agreed. In 2014, hackers got access to hundreds of thousands of photos and videos that users sent to Snapchat through a third-party application. We do not think about what personal data we give access to when registering on the site or downloading the application - recall the discussion of Chinese Meitu. Even at first glance, a reliable system can fail, as happened to celebrities whose nude photos were hacked on the Web.
Jacob Morgan, a journalist with Forbes, believes that in a world where there is no privacy, we have to either play by the new rules and be ready for universal openness, or try to fight. True, in the position of those who disagree with the situation, there are often many contradictions: we want corporations to act more openly and transparently, but we ourselves hope that we can use the technology so that no one gets access to our data; we want to use the services without giving anything in return - and we hope that the companies whose user agreement we sign act in our interests.
Ideas about what personal information is and what kind of space can be considered safe for open conversations are changing. According to the data of 2010, in the USA, 92% of children aged two years already have profiles or some kind of digital footprint in social networks (for example, photos that their parents post). In several European countries - the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain - the percentage of children who already have information on the web, below - 73, but this is a very big figure. It is obvious that in the near future, today's children, like us all, will face new questions. The way they look in social networks is now decided by their parents, and there is no guarantee that they will like this image in adulthood - unlike traditional photo albums, this information will be available to much more people.
The times when we were afraid, as in the "Matrix", to be subordinate to the machines, are long gone - technology has quietly and organically entered our lives. The way we look in social networks and on the Internet as a whole, is now just another part of our personality, with the only difference that its traces will be stored much longer than the memories of others about any conversation or event. Of course, the image that we create in social networks does not give us a complete picture, and we cannot know in advance how others interpret it - but it cannot be ignored.