It is no
mystery that social media is viewed as a great communication tool but also as a
terrible way to weaken real human interaction. The Internet just makes it so
easy – many would say too easy – to
lose touch with reality by still feeling connected somehow. However, most people
understand and know about this current issue; what they don’t know is how
social media can directly infringe upon someone’s human rights by simply
“agreeing” with the terms and services contract before signing up – yeah, that
thing no one reads goes against your rights.
In most terms
and services contracts, there is a policy stating that data may be collected to
help improve online services. This allows social media sites, such as Facebook
and Twitter, to change people’s online screens and interfaces in order to
experiment and figure out what customers (you) like. Most of the time the tests
are harmless, but Facebook recently went too far. By manipulating news feeds to
show more negative posts, Facebook intentionally worsened more than 300,000
users’ moods and online experiences. Although it doesn’t seem too awful now, this
is just the tip of the iceberg.
What
Facebook did is still unethical and only opens the door to what it (and other online
companies) can do while still remaining legally allowed to do so. The worst
part is that it’s our fault; we gave big corporations the power to disregard
our privacy and manipulate our emotions by merely clicking the “I agree”
button. It’s that easy… and it makes the Internet scary.
As a
generation of tech-savvy individuals, we take the Internet for granted and
think of it as little harm to us; it's simply a mechanism of instantaneous access to
information and communication. We need to realize that our right to our own privacy
is being taken away willingly. Companies are not going to stop using us as lab
rats because we chose to be them. The most we can do about this is get angry
and hope that we’re not a part of the worse experiments. I guess this is the
cost of “free” online services.
Sources:
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/negative-effect-social-media-society-individuals-27617.html
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