Online Monitoring through tracking firms.
Moving on from "wiretapping" to "online tracking", seems like politicians are not the only victims, but all of us - as a social media user are being monitored by different parties through social networks.
Advertising and tracking firms are ubiquitous on user's modern website. Online privacy appears to be a born-digital problem since intrusive mechanism and monitoring system gradually became pervasive through social media with other third party tracking firms. As most of the people might already notice that computer's browser directory or program data subfolders such as Cookies - which is one of the most common-known form of online tracking, which gathered user's browse history records and personal information, incidentally produce a seemingly instant, mediated relationship between the user and other 3rd party. Which enable them to profile user's personal interests into behavioral categories in order to compile user's information into a database, meanwhile all these information benefits to different parties for multi-purposes.
Does Online Privacy really exist?
| Refer to Deleuze's concept of control of society - 'the cloud', as a premier example of what computer scientists term virtualisation a technique for turning real things into logical objects, whether a physical network turned into a cloud-shaped icon, or a warehouse full of data storage servers turned into a "cloud drive". Which is construct our modern notion of privacy.' written by Tung-Hui Hu in 'A Prehistory of the cloud'. Hu suggests "The cloud will protect our data from unsafe, "unfree" hackers, that the cloud is a unique medium for user interaction. Its ideology is disseminated through routine interactions with applications in the cloud, such as tagging a photograph on FaceBook. Even measures meant for our safety, for instance the system construct a set of cultural norms that user internalise as "responsible" as online behaviour. Hu, T. (n.d.). A prehistory of the cloud.
In here, I agree that the cloud drive or Google Drive or Dropbox in an extend level is better than computer's hard disk or hard drive. However, the level of its privacy remains an incredulity. Moreover, there is one thing that is definite - the social network especially Facebook is definitely an unsafe platform in terms of Privacy. According to one of the most recent controversial court case leading to Online Privacy issue on Facebook - Mark Zuckerberg committee investigating his company's massive data breach and how it deals with users' privacy.
| Is Facebook the Culprit of Data Leakage?
credits: Smith, D. (2018)
| 'More than anything else, cybernetics was an attempt to create a new controlling metaphor for communication, one that integrated technological, biological and social forms of knowledge.' - written by Ed Finn in "What Algorithms want - Imagination in the age of computer" chapter 1 Finn, E. (n.d.). What algorithms want.
Refer to Finn's particular statement, cyberspace as an evolution of a cybernetics like Facebook, which has a full control for communication in various aspects, however full control means it despoils user's right of privacy. FaceBook with 2.5 billion users, is by far the biggest and that many of the other most popular apps – WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger – which are also owned by Facebook. However, the gathered data collection from Facebook user occurs through a wide variety of sources, such as user's profile account info as well as cookies by user's connected communication devices. In which, the collected data includes tracking user's location, installed application, access to user's webcam and microphone, user's contact details, email address, calendar and time schedule, contact history, chat history, user's file, purchased history, purchased games, photos and videos, browse history, even personal music and fashion choices. Facebook revealed that over 100 petebytes of data are stored in a single Hadoop disk cluster operate by Hadoop system.
Cover a research paper written by Balachander Krishnamurthy and Craig Wills shows that social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace are giving the hungry cloud of tracking companies an easy way to add your name, lists of friends, and other profile information to the records they already keep on you. In addition, an other significant research indicates in 2014 pointed out that Facebook use web browsing data in order to deliver targeted "interest-based" advertising to Facebook users whilst appear on user's Facebook feed. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg eventually presented in court speak out about all these misgivings and accusation on last Tuesday the 10th of April.
| Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was questioned for almost 10 hours by senators and representatives over the company's privacy policies
credits: Michelle Krupa, C. (2018).
Tracking users’ web browsing behaviour even after they log out.
The vague response Zuckerberg given in the court whether Facebook can track users after they had logged off from the platform. The Facebook engineer Gregg Stefancik confirmed that Facebook has cookies that persist after log-out as a safety measurement. “I know that people use cookies on the internet and that you can probably coordinate activity between sessions. We do that for a number of reasons, including security and including measuring ads to make sure that the ad experiences are the most effective, which of course people can opt out of.” this statement reflected that provided Facebook user's personal data are not secure. Facebook surreptitiously has always been tracking users without them noticing. Anon, (n.d.)
In addition, Facebook admit its smartphone app occasionally operate in the background when users are offline, however he denied eavesdropping on user's conversations to target adverts, following persistent speculation on the part of users who have received suspiciously timed promotional messages. Even though there are many experiment tested by current Facebook users proved that even when users are offline on Facebook, one experiment was that as a Facebook user repeatedly said a key word 'Cat food' within 1-2 days as he was not online on Facebook, 2 days later, new advertisements which related to that specific spoken keyword 'Cat food' popped up on his Facebook feed. In this case, Facebook has never directly addressed these coincidences and never positively respond to all these conspiracy theory.
| "I hope you understand, this is not how I meant for things to go, and I apologize for any harm done as a result of my neglect to consider how quickly the site would spread and its consequences thereafter." - Mark Zuckerberg the Facebook CEO apologised for online privacy issue.
This is an era where the creation of a cybernetics are ubiquitously enlarging to an extend, whilst multi-media gradually manipulates every users in real life. "We need comprehensive privacy and data protection legislation.” remarked by Frank Pallone, a US Representative for New Jersey. Which his word almost spoken out every Facebook user's intention, not only specifically FaceBook, but also comprises other social media which provide a "private" cyberspace to user.
Reference:
Hu, T. (n.d.). A prehistory of the cloud.
Finn, E. (n.d.). What algorithms want.
Smith, D. (2018). Zuckerberg put on back foot as House grills Facebook CEO over user tracking. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/apr/11/zuckerberg-hearing-facebook-tracking-questions-house-back-foot [Accessed 16 Apr. 2018].
Anon, (n.d.). Mark Zuckerberg's Congressional testimony showed that a bedrock principle of online privacy is a complete and utter fraud. [online] Available at: http://uk.businessinsider.com/mark-zuckerberg-congressional-hearings-informed-consent-2018-4?r=US&IR=T%5B.
Michelle Krupa, C. (2018). Mark Zuckerberg has been apologizing for online privacy problems since he was a student at Harvard. [online] CNN. Available at: https://edition.cnn.com/2018/04/11/us/zuckerberg-harvard-congress-trnd/index.html [Accessed 16 Apr. 2018].
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