The future is ours to see 6

Rising out of a stone wall

Since the coming up of digital media there is a lot going on about privacy. It looks as if we loose on a daily basis. Social Media like Google, Facebook, and Twitter, are interactive pirates by using our input on what - we like to believe - is our personal page.

At first: There is nothing personal to it. As individuals we are free to decide if we use these pre-prepared tools. We did not develop it, and we are aware that these are open instruments; otherwise we would not sign up for it. It is, because everyone can see it, that we want to be part of it. Social Media are appellations to our human-want to exhibit ourselves. That’s why they are there, and that’s why we use them!

Having said that: Is it fair that those companies use our input for their own commercial goals? No! But who wants to believe that all this work to develop and design was just be done to please the world’s community?

Besides this: what is privacy? Generally spoken it is everything we do not want to share, and that is not the same for everyone. From a basic point of view privacy means: the knowledge about yourself you only share with a small group of intimae. So it can’t be your name, address, etc…, because these are written down, and known by a lot. As soon as you need something in the outside world the first knowledge about yourself you have to leave are these. It can’t be what you eat, shop, or whatever you do in the open, for the same reason. Stay home if you do not want strangers to know it. But still, this is the knowledge Social Media companies use to provide your page with ads, or to sell to third parties with the same goal: to bombard you with advertisements you did not ask for. That’s what annoying us, that’s when we point to privacy-acts, and call for more and better regulations.

Further: privacy is also a matter of culture and history. Even when people are on holiday, privacy views change. They walk half-naked along the Costa’s, something they never would at home, in their own neighborhood. So, privacy differs, and changes per situation.

Our call for privacy though, means completely something else. What we really want is protection against being harass.

Well, you better get used to it, or change your feelings about it! Internet also interacts with our harassment feelings. It is from all times, that when you get something for free, it generally means that you have something to offer yourself as well, and the use of Social Media is free of any charge, except the offer they ask you for: Your privacy! If you don’t like it, don’t participate.

As I stipulated before, Internet is a truly free environment. Of course you need a provider (or become one yourself) to have access. It is not that you don’t need any investment to use it, but once you pass the gate, the world behind it, is free of charge if you know how to use it. Internet in itself, the environment, belongs to no one. It is an open world, but everyone uses it: some just for fun, others to make money, and those others are the ones who charge you, even when it is for free…

…to be continued…