The goal of the Web is to serve humanity. We build it now so that those who come to it later will be able to create things that we cannot ourselves imagine.
– Tim Berners-Lee, Web Father
Three things we need to change to save it:
- Control over personal data
- Spread of Misinformation
- Lack of Political advertising transparency & understanding
Bots and Fake Accounts
Around 48 million of Twitter’s 15% are automated bots while Facebook had up to 60 million bots. The existence of bots can harm and sway advertising audiences, reshape political debates, defraud businesses and ruin reputation.
Three types of Twitter bots:
- Scheduled bots, posts messages on timely basis e.g. The Big Ben Bot
- Watcher Bot monitors other Twitter accounts/ websites and tweet when something changes
- Amplification bots follow, retweet, and like tweets for clients to boost their engagement.
The Influence Economy
Fortune 500 has been reshaped and created a new status makers i.e. amount of followers/ retweets/ likes. High follower counts becomes a new market of YouTube stars with high subscriber counts where sponsors spend billions of dollars for sponsorship deals for the YouTube stars to promote their products. According to Captiv8, a 100k influencer may earn ~$2,000 for a sponsored tweet while an influencer with 1m follower may earn $20,000.
Privacy Issues
Privacy has no legal definition. It relates to the principles of human dignity, uniqueness, importance of solitude and has historically been described as the ‘right to be left alone’. In Victoria right to privacy is included in the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006.
Many of us checked the Terms & Conditions without reading it and big companies such as Google & Facebook may exploit our data from it.
More than half are somewhat uncomfortable to very uncomfortable due to advertising based on online behaviour. There are ways for us to opt out of online behaviour tracking but many of us do not know how to do so. For you, here are the how to opt out targeted ads through tracking online behavior:
Protect your privacy!
- Instagram: iOS Guide Android Guide
- Google: Opt-out browser add-on
- Facebook: Article
Despite knowing the consequences and giving the companies our personal information, there are many ways companies can misuse your personal information. This is done unknowingly to the data owner and may receive from harmless continuous spam mail to stealing credit card information.
Our Privacy Protectors
To ensure businesses are ethical in using personal information of their consumers, there are Advertising Standards Bureau such as Australian Government, ADMA, Ad Standards, ACMA, AANA; Public; and the media to overlook it. There are also Code of Practice released by ADMA for businesses to follow in order to be ethical.
However, there are limitations on regulations as not all issues can be regulated. For example, advertising or promotion may be legal but not considered ethical hence advertisers must set the appropriateness of their actions. It’s a grey area mostly.
Your Data
How do they compile our data to understand and target ads/ improve their services?
- Geo-tracking – done by uber even when you are not within the application. Does other ride hailing apps do this too? Can this potentially harm consumers?
- Internet of Things – Alexa, Smart Watches, Digital Weight Scale
- Artificial Intelligence – Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri, Bixby
Are we safe?
It is a big question but it is important. To what degree do we agree upon giving away our personal data? How are data being regulated so that it does not fall to the wrong hands? This question to me raises even more question as the government are behind on technology than technology companies hence regulation may be outdated and companies can control the people and use leverage on their personal information. Should big tech companies such as Google and Facebook be broken up due to their massive personal information database?
digital diary 
I think companies need to guarantee that all of customers personal information are used effectively and only for the business matters hence customers will be relieved that the information will not be misused by companies. Therefore, companies need to consider privacy and ethics when they use customer data so the data can be regulated well. Google and Facebook are examples of big companies that have managed to expose customer information without actually leaking it that may harm customers reputation. Companies should learn from these companies and incorporate it in their advertising and promotion strategies.
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It is hard for companies to do that because it will be a conflict of interest within. It is unethical to sell our information outside but the thing is they still do for profit. I believe there’s a need for a body to oversee this globally. Thank you for reading!
Warmest Regards,
Sabrina
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I know it is very hard for companies while they must have mixed feelings whether to bring profits for their business by exposing customer information or not. However, companies need to protect their personal information and not misuse it to avoid any issues later.
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Thanks you for including statistics so I could have a better understanding. How would you recommend people to not over share online?
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Thank you for reading!
I believe that oversharing depends from person to person but the rule of thumb would be not to share every single detail of your life online and only share when you are levelheaded. Put yourself in others perspective, would you like it if you see that post?
Warmest Regards,
Sabrina
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Ugh fake accounts r the worst!
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Yes they are! Nowadays, social medias are doing their best to sweep up those fake accounts to minimise damage in their social media.
Warmest Regards,
Sabrina
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I feel like the government is into these mallicious strategy as well. I do not think anybody can help us besides ourselves. Consumers should be more proactive at protecting their information by just not sharing it online or with applications. There are plenty ways to stop things like geo-tracking. But the big question is if everyone took these precautionary measures, will it affect the economy and the way we live our lifes?
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Wow that is a big question and a complex one. It definitely will depend on the PESTLE whether one action will affect the rest, but it may reduce some companies effectivity in doing their job and it will reduce our convenience. So, privacy or convenience?
Warmest Regards,
Sabrina
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hi! im so glad i found your post, its really insightful and educational. when you talked about how we as consumers just check the terms and conditions without actually reading it, it really resonated with me because thats exactly what i do. I think consumers trust too much and think that things like hacking or leaking of personal information will never happen to them and i myself take that for granted. Consumers definitely have to be more informed and protect themselves.
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Thank you for reading!
Consumers need to stay informed and protect themselves indeed. However, the government and people who know about this should raise the issue too, so you, me and everyone else who knows about this should teach the ones that doesn’t know about privacy issues!
Warmest Regards,
Sabrina
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It is really scary that others will use my private information for illegal activities. It is really important for companies to keep consumer privacy very secure.
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Thank you for reading!
It is indeed important and companies should really invest on cybersecurity especially bigger ones to reduce risks of data leaks.
Warmest Regards,
SabrinaI
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Exceptionally insightful post! Thanks for sharing again. I personally feel that without the use of public and large amount of population of data, it is impossible for these mega companies to produce such powerful devices for us human to leverage on! Even though there is possibilities of massive breach and abuse of data, i personally feel we should all be responsible on our on personal data sharing. If we choose not to share too much, they can’t steal it anyways. What are your thoughts? Are our data worth sharing? 😛
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