Some of the most important privacy issues that I see in terms of social media are that companies can buy your information from social media sites and that everyone can see everything. Granted, it is your own fault for people seeing what you post because you post it. But in terms of companies buying your information, I see that as morally wrong. No one should be able to purchase your personal information from anyone. It would be less wrong if you were more aware of the situation. However, the social media sites hide it in the terms of agreement for applications. Therefore you are not very aware that you are giving the applications the right to sell your personal information. I, personally, did not learn of this until I took this class.
Media companies should not be able to use your personal information to see you products or sell the information to other companies. Sometimes when you look over to the right side of your Facebook page you will see something you’ve been looking to buy for a long time. However, 9 times out of 10, the products you see on the side bar creep people out and make them think twice about what they have on their pages. Countless people have expressed to me the eerie feeling they receive when you say you are interested in soccer and then their side bar offers you links to buy soccer game tickets, memorabilia, etc. It is just strange and, in a sense, inappropriate.
I am concerned about future employers looking at my social media sites. I am still currently in college and this is when you are supposed to be having fun before you venture out into the real, professional world. It just so happens that our generation loves to document everything we do and then post it on social media sites. I do, however, try to limit what actually gets linked to my profiles. There are always the ones that slip through and end up on the sites for everyone to see though. I firmly believe that employers should not use this as a factor when hiring someone unless they bring that kind of lifestyle into the work place. If someone has done well in everything they have done before apply to their newest job then their social life should not be something that gets in the way of getting hired. However, on the other hand, if someone shows up to an interview with a potential employer smelling like what they drank at the bar the night before and can barely keep their eyes open because they are hung over then they are obviously someone who cannot separate their personal and professional lives.
If I were in the position of hiring someone I would not use their social media sites as a factor when considering employing them. The only way I would every use it is if a situation that I just spoke of arose. I would then look to see if there are pictures of this person out drinking every single night or if we caught them on a bad morning after. However, showing up like that to an interview still puts them at a great disadvantage and at that point I probably wouldn’t even need to look at their social media sites to see what kind of worker they would turn out to be.
As for children in grades K – 12, I believe that if they are not supposed to be exposed to something than they should not be allowed on sites that allow this to happen. No one should ever friend a teacher of his or hers while still in school. When social media sites became popular I was in high school. All the students had social media pages and many of the teachers did as well. However, we were never allowed to be friends with our teachers until we graduated. I think that is the best way because it avoids us seeing things we should not see while the teachers are still our superiors. It is just like the film we watched one day in class with the teacher’s private life being exposed to her school and her getting in trouble for it. Everyone has their own personal lives and it is up to that person to decide whom they share it with and who they do not share it with.
I believe that the same goes for professors in college as well. There is no reason why you need to be friends with a superior on a social media site. The only advantage to this would be to more easily ask for help with work. However, if you need help that is what email, office hours and class are for, not Facebook or any other social media site.
Parents should keep tabs on their kids online, despite the kids hating their parents for doing so. The Internet can be a very dangerous place for an innocent person who doesn’t yet know all the in and outs of it. My parents did not really set boundaries for me except for moving the computer out of my room and into the dining room when I began middle school. At the time I did not even view this as a boundary because I still did everything I did on the computer before they moved it. Now I see it as my parents being able to more closely watch what I was doing online. It was very subtle approach to watching me while I was online and I believe that is the same thing I will do when my children reach an age that I want to observe what they are doing.
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