Raise your hand if you’ve ever read the Privacy statement on any website or platform. Do you even know how to access the Terms of Agreement on the platforms you use?
Most people would answer these two questions—no. In fact, I asked an adult college woman similar questions about the Terms of Agreement, which usually houses the Privacy statement. She answered the following way:
She isn’t the only one who feels this way. Why is it that Facebook and other Social Media Companies can hide behind the digital curtain and do whatever they like under the guise of, “we already told you we use your data.”
On any other agreement, such as a contract for a house or a job, we always read every line and sometimes we have a lawyer go over the contract with us and “dumb it down.” We don’t do this for our online lives though. Why?
In our DCI 180 Black Mirror Class, a similar thought experience occurred. Each of us having read about how Social Media companies actively invade our privacy, admitted we never read any statements or agreements. We skim and scroll to the bottom and hit the beautiful and bold, “I Agree” statement thus selling our souls to bureaucratic Social Media Sharks. Our Professors decided to have us read any Privacy statement of our choice and have us interpret it.
I personally picked Facebook, because of the numerous privacy violations that occur on the platform such as the Cambridge Analytical Scandal which gave data on people and their contacts without any of their consent. Furthermore, this data was used by the Trump election committee to actively target potential Trump supporters with personalized ads. Because many people get their news from Facebook, some commentators blame the Cambridge Analytical Scandal for electing Trump as President.
Before reading Facebook’s Privacy Statement, I noticed the format was extremely different from the traditional contract. Facebook made their Privacy statement bullet-pointed and interactive with blogs detailing in a quick and simple way common questions. In addition, at the bottom of the page, they even included a “privacy check-up.”
The first commonly asked question was asking, “how do you change who gets to see your posts and photos?” The way I interpreted Facebook’s answer to this question was that it’s simple to change whether you post publicly (anyone can see it even strangers) or privately. You can even specify which groups of people (friends etc) see which posts you make by going on your computer and going to your friend page and using the menu to add them to either a specific list such as friends or a new list.
The next question dealt with how you can see how others view your profile and how you can update your profile to hide some content that you wish to remain hidden or private from the public. For instance, if you posted a personal update on your Timeline that you wish only your friends may see, you simply go to the top right corner of your profile and click the ellipses and click on the option of edit privacy. If worse comes to worse, you can always go to setting and change the Timeline privacy that way.
The other sections were all similarly formatted as interactive slides. I found the Stay Safe and Secure section the most interesting. They mentioned how you can check to see whether you have been hacked by checking to see how many devices are logged in. If this sounds like something you’d like to do, go to More on your top right corner of your home page then click Settings and then go to Security and Login. Then after you’ve clicked Security and Login, you go to Where You’re Login in. If you see a location that does not make sense, you click the drop-down menu and you can select the option that is applicable to you.
I learned from reading Facebook’s Privacy policies that they tried to make their policies easier to read and specific enough to help someone figure it out on their own. But, I also found that some issues such as Phising were briefly explained and then at the last slide it would tell you if you wanted to learn more click on this link. I don’t really think most people would click on the link for further read, but at least it’s there if we need it. Overall, Facebook’s format was better than other companies who treat their Privacy Policy like a reading for an Intro to Digital Law grad class. Oy Vey.
Another interesting point they mentioned under the above section, was how they don’t share any of your “personal information without your permission.” This sounds jolly, until you realize by clicking Terms of Agreement, we all allowed them to gather personal data on us and use it to sell to Advertisers who further track our data. Everything is personalized for us. Thanks Facebook… This is why we can’t have nice things 👀.
A couple tips to leave you with a better and more private online life:
- Create different passwords for different websites. Make sure they have a combo of Uppercase and Lowercase characters and numerical values. Write them down in a journal that you won’t lose.
- Don’t share passwords
- READ the policies and familiarize yourself with what data they gather and how they use it.
- Don’t click on sus links or give info like credit card numbers or social security.
- Common Sense… if it looks wack it probably is fake.
Good luck and Happy Typing!
