privacy – The Orbital

The recent Cambridge Analytica scandal and the #DeleteFacebook trend that followed, have posed important questions about the price we pay for social media. What do we really pay in return for a social internet that is ‘free of charge’? Although we don’t pay with actual currency, an argument can be made that we pay with our data. But do the benefits of using social media outweigh the costs? Todd Rosenblum, a former secretary to the White House under Barack Obama, outlines how social media companies collect our personal data as a commodity in exchange for letting us use the social media platform and its services free of a monetary charge. The more we use the platform, the more details we provide and the more third-party advertisers pay for it. However, such a willing exchange of our person...

Ever since the creation and implementation of mass surveillance, whether that be through extensive CCTV networks or even drones attached with cameras, we have been slowly losing our right to privacy. Only last year, the Investigatory Powers Act, known informally as the ‘Snoopers’ Charter’, was passed by Parliament. This allows government agencies to gain access to the information from phones, computers networks and a vast array of other electronic devices whether the user wants them to or not and potentially spy on them. Terrifying, yes, but are we really surprised? After all, we’ve been slowly forsaking our own privacy for years now anyway. You might say that that’s ridiculous, but hear me out, because it may not be as strange as it sounds. Social media has undeniably exploded in the l...

Tag: privacy

When did we decide our privacy is overrated?