Stripped of Privacy

What does it mean to have privacy? Typically we think of definitions such as to keep certain parts of one’s life a secret or to separate from common knowledge. We think of being withdrawn or isolated, or choosing to be confidential. Privacy is the right to selectively express oneself, but the digital age has deprived people the opportunity to remain truly private. In Understanding Digital Culture, Vincent Miller discusses how the idea of “the community” has changed and also discusses the ways in which privacy has been compromised in digital life. Surveillance has grown into a beast of an issue due to the Internet’s free and open nature. People, more often than not, unknowingly expose information online, and that information becomes available publicly to be collected for commercial purposes. Surely it is unethical and immoral for the government and commercial corporations to profile individuals to the extent that they are doing it; however, the more pressing issue is that until recently, the majority of online users, or Netizens, as Rebecca MacKinnon (2012) calls them in her book Consent of the Networked, are nowhere near educated enough on how easy it is for their private information to be exploited.

In his chapter “Social Media and the Problem of Community: Space, Relationships, Networks,” Miller concludes that the word community “is not an accurate term to describe the current state of social relationships in contemporary post-industrial societies” (p.197). Instead he proposes that network is more accurate in the digital age for describing social life. The rise of the internet is responsible for this shift, as individuals increasingly form relationships on social media networks. According to Miller’s discussion, these networks are a-spatial, chosen, instrumental/specialized, tenuous, and open-ended, which arguably make them such popular forums for forming relationships (Figure 8.2 p. 201); they are convenient, and convenience is so preciously important in the fast paced lives we all live today. Ironically, it is largely these social networking platforms that have opened the floodgates allowing our information to be accessed by data hungry corporations. There is an ironic tie between our shift from communities to networks and the issue of privacy invasion.

The connection between social networks and privacy is the Internet. The Internet is the forum on which social media platforms are built, and it is here that our private information is mined via social media platforms online. This topic is discussed in-depth in Miller’s chapter “‘Everyone is Watching’: Privacy and Surveillance in Digital Life.” He states that “online life has basically become raw material for the production of consumer (and other) identities, as all behavior is turned into data points that are organized, manipulated and transformed into a dematerialized identity to be targeted by those who have something to sell (Zwick and Knott, 2009), or those looking for threats” (p.125). The Internet itself has become marketing’s most valuable tool in building profiles to provide consumers with targeted or personalized advertisements. Databases and profiling have both positives and negatives and Miller outlines the pros and cons. The benefits include providing customers with a more personalized shopping experience, avoiding the distribution of irrelevant information, improving economic efficiency, and avoiding direct human surveillance (p. 127). On the other hand, the downsides include, creating rather than actually describing identities, eroding personal autonomy, and blurring the line between the distinction of public and private information (p.127). It is interesting to think how we often celebrate the privilege to be anonymous on the Internet; however, considering Miller’s discussion, Internet users are never truly and actually anonymous in the grand scheme of things. There is a profile out there that knows who they are and what they do and do not like.

Miller also discusses the issue of government surveillance and the shift from privacy to security, really beginning with the USA-PATRIOT Act after the terrorist attack on 9/11 (p.115). When is government surveillance justified? Should we as citizens be okay with compromising our privacy for national security? I feel we should, but as with everything, there is a point where things can be taken too far. For example, should the government be able to work with marketing firms to buy and sell personal information? Miller describes this as being considered a form of commercial free speech, thereby concluding that we will be less likely to have laws and limitations on this kind of behavior (116). In my opinion, there is a fine line between surveillance for national security and surveillance for commercial gain, and it is wrong when the government participates in the latter without our consent. This is a prime example of the abuse of power…give him an inch and he’ll take a mile. Miller writes of some pretty frightening tools including HTTP cookies, the roving bug, Phonesitter, Mobilspy, and Carnivore that I would bet the majority of people do not even know exist. This is where the root of the ethical problem stems from. People are largely unaware.

The more and more pressing the issue of privacy becomes, people are being clued into what is happening online with profiling and target advertising. It’s difficult not to notice the ad that so “coincidentally” pops up on your Facebook page or on your web browser banner for the sneakers you searched yesterday or the book you bought on Amazon this morning. This has become such an annoying distraction that I do think people are more aware than they have been in the past. Also, more and more news articles discussing the invasion of privacy have hit the press. I read an article this summer about the dangers of Facebook Messenger, and how installing the app basically gives Facebook full access to your mobile device. There has been some outrage, but not enough for serious action to take place. What it all comes down to is a point I argued in a previous essay I wrote on this topic for another class. People ultimately appear more concerned with their expressive privacy than their informational privacy. People are so concerned with how to protect the way they are expressed visually on social media platforms that they neglect protecting their privacy in terms of the information stored on them via data aggregation. Expressive privacy is so visible and evident and I think that is why it absorbs so much of our focus. We cannot see when a database records our preferences. Whether or not people still would not be bothered as much if they read chapters such as Miller’s, I don’t know; but I do think it is important that Internet users are aware.