As someone who spends a lot of time on social media,
I try to be careful with the things I post online.
I am fully aware that my data is always being collected,
but I have also been skeptical about how much privacy I actually have.
There is a large population of people who I know
cover up their webcams when they are not on an active Zoom meeting.
Going into the reading, I did not think much about the
traces of breadcrumbs I leave throughout the internet.
I always found it fascinating (and a little bit creepy)
how I could talk about wanting something and within the next hour,
I get an advertisement for it while skipping through Instagram stories.
It has even gotten to the point where I jokingly mention needing something very
loud to my phone just to see if it would give me an advertisement.
The part of the reading where Target predicts someone’s
pregnancy definitely convinced me a little bit more of how severe this matter is.
What else can large companies tell about me?
Am I selling my soul to large corporations?
The portion about the protests is relevant to me at the moment because
I am currently working on a documentary about how systemic racism
has impacted two of my friends and I.
I am using collected public video footage from all over the internet.
I will be touching on the topic of finding
people based on these videos and having them later arrested.
I am comparing the 2020 BLM protests and the riot at the
Capitol and how racism has allowed more people from the
riots to go a long time before getting arrested.
Behavioral surplus is shocking to think about.
The predictions made by algorithms are advancing the way humans interact with the world.
Everything is becoming easier to access, which is key to large
corporations to make consumers spend more money.
Businesses also using information of our own faces that we
innocently post on social media can be sold to anyone.
What are my images used for?
I wonder how many countries my images have been in?
How can social media like Instagram or Facebook
really change my emotions and behavior in the real world?
At the end of this study session, I am fully convinced that
I need to spend less time online,
because my data is always going to be collected.