Would you marry someone who knew more about you than you do them? Because that’s exactly what signing up for Facebook is: a blind marriage of data.
With this week being all about information access it was a conveniently perfect time for Mark Zuckerberg to finally screw up. As I was doing some article searching so I could fully understand what’s going on with the whole Cambridge Analytica v Facebook thing – I came across something which perfectly explained the situation at hand: “Congratulations. You’re now married to Mark Zuckerberg”. Because that’s just it – we’ve knowingly signed all of our data – even our most intimate, and possibly deleted data – over to Mr Zuckerberg like the good little wives we are.
So, this week, I curated an image which brings humour to the situation to highlight how absurd it is that we have been perfectly ok with our data being harvested and used for commercial and political purposes, up until this point. It’s not like we didn’t know it was happening, people are only angry now that the systematic issue has been brought to light.
If you ask me, Mark is a scummy husband and we all need to divorce him. But, we’re going to stay with him and keep giving him our data, because he’s sorry, he’s going to change, and he won’t do it again. That’s marriage after all…
Are you ok with the amount and scale at which our data is being harvested? Comment below.
If you’re interested in exploring the issue, here’s a few resources to consider:
How is Facebook preventing platform abuse?
Between fake news and data harvesting, Facebook has no way to win
How Amazon Helped Cambridge Analytica Harvest Americans’ Facebook Data
Researcher who inspired Cambridge Analytica’s data harvesting says era of privacy is over
Facebook told me it would act swiftly on data misuse – in 2015
Cambridge Analytica: Whistle-blower Christopher Wylie, and Paul-Olivier Dehaye to give evidence
The Cambridge Analytica scandal is wildly confusing. This timeline will help
Hey Jasmyn, I recently did a blog post on this case and I’m definitely not ok with the amount of data that’s being harvested for the commercial gain of Mr Zuckerberg. I found this a really good, quick read and I really like your ‘marriage’ analogy you’ve used to show to some extent how much data was harvested and the amount of trouble Zuckerberg’s in and just goes to show that we Definitely live in a time where nothing is truly a secret.
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The remediations were so suiting to the theme, very well done. I agree with your comments on the marriage of data and just how oblivious we can be as users to how much we willingly accept. Every time we install a new application on our phones, it always prompts us to read things, accept to the usage and collection of data. We never have any idea of what is being collected and what its being used for. Somebody online recently discovered that within the Facebook app, you can go in and see how the app predicts your demographics based of literally everything and where the data comes from (its under ad settings, tucked away if you’re interested in reading your own). But regardless, there’s an online conspiracy that Mark Zuckerberg is actually an android and there’s plenty of proof to it, so read up on this! https://www.shortlist.com/news/opinion/mark-zuckerberg-robot-facebook/330562
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Hey Jasmyn! I really like how simple and easy to read your blog post is!! I found this post so funny and easy to understand. Because with all honesty I didn’t understand what the deal was with this whole thing but you just put it so simply! But I now also finding myself question if I have this ‘married’ with other social media platforms like Instagram or is that kind of like a causal dating scenario? I don’t know haha, but I really did enjoy your blog and your media that you made! 🙂
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“Casual dating scenario” – love it! Maybe we aren’t exclusive with our platforms, so we should be careful with what we tell them..
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I think what’s also interesting is how social media beyond Facebook is ultimately a series of platforms that consume your data… I think its important (and interesting) sometimes to really reflect on how much the internet knows about me from what I’ve shared. Kinda scary sometimes too…
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