Internet privacy has been much in the news lately because of Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, and the aged and sorry state of many of the U.S.'s top legislators.
Mark Zuckerberg, creator and CEO of Facebook, appeared before before the Senate and the House a couple weeks ago. I only had the stomach for about twenty minutes of it, but I did follow both days on Twitter pretty closely. Twitter was hysterical. Perhaps my favorite tweet of those days was from Stephen Colbert who said he was starting to feel bad for Mark Zuckerberg because he felt sure those Senators weren't going to let him go until they got him to fix their WiFi for them.
Sadly, that's exactly what too much of the questioning looked like. It seemed that these legislators' younger and more digitally literate aids had given them a good question to ask. But Zuck was smart -- he answered concisely (occasionally even with a real answer). But the poor legislator had no follow-up question. It made me think that perhaps they didn't understand how social media works.
As the owner of my own business, for example, I have learned that I can target Facebook ads to an alarmingly narrow niche of people ("and people like them," an actual box you can check when preparing your ad).
On the other hand, I have many friends who tell me that they don't care that much about internet privacy because they don't share anything "private" or "that would get them in trouble."
Well, yeah -- me either. I NEVER tell my smart phone that I want to buy Stacy's Pita Chips when we go to my local King Soopers (the Colorado version of a Krogers). When I make a grocery list in my phone, I just write down "chips." I never once have even said the words "Stacy's Pita Chips" out loud before, during, or after I was shopping for them. (In case you were wondering if my microphone picked it up.) The whole time I'm in the store, my phone is buried deep in my pocket (so no camera either). And I don't have an app for the store on my phone. I enter a phone number into their keypad as I check out to get my discounts.
So my question is this: Every time I come home from the store with a new bag of Stacy's Pita Chips, why is there an ad in my Facebook newsfeed from (you'll never guess) STACY'S PITA CHIPS?
I still haven't figured it out. But it's given me lots to think about. No, I don't care if you know that I buy pita chips way too often. But what if I'm proposing to present a few days of training to a corporation who decides to look into my social media accounts or google my name? AM I in control of everything they might find? Is it worth setting my social media accounts to the highest level of privacy available?
I haven't finished thinking about this yet. But I'm actively working on it. What do you think? Leave me your thoughts in the Comments.