Social Media and Privacy

Social Media has the capability of ruining someones life as stated in the article regarding the grotesque video that was being shared on a college campus. Sometimes, it isn't even the circulation of the video that does the worst of damage, it's the reaction and harassment from others through social media. The above are examples of how social media's lack of privacy can be negative but as stated in the article "social media can offer victims a path to legal relief by, in effect, creating more witnesses." It is through social media and the internet that we are able to recognize faces that were at the scene, or make a connection from the videos/photos and where they were uploaded from. Many cases would never result in conviction if it wasn't for images and videos being circulated through social media. Even if a person(s) is convicted for the crime, there is still a "devastating burden for survivors to live with the knowledge that they have no hope of ensuring that images of their sexual violation will ever be erased." Also, a possible implication from mass sharing of videos and images is using it as proof of consent which is sometimes easy for lawyers to argue when they watch a video frame by frame. Social media will continue to offer conflicting approaches about events such as rape and het-speech. There are many factors that come in to play when discussing how to better enforce community standards and social media has a big role to play in that discussion.

I Have Nothing to Hide

Although many people think that they have nothing to hide regarding online activity and information, they are not the ones who decide what is right and what is wrong. The statement "I have nothing to hide...so it does not affect me" is merely personal opinion. Some reasons we should all be concerned with privacy is because we do not know what is right and what is wrong. We do not know what information people are looking for either. For example, when Evan Ratliff went "off the grid", people he had not connected with in person or the internet were able to find out an abundance of information such as his health history, family connections, and other information. We should all be concerned with privacy because we do not know for certain what information about us is out there, but we do know that it's a lot! I am personally concerned about online privacy because of the same reasons stated above. However, since I have been growing up in a time that has diminishing online privacy I seem have become a little more accustomed to it. I do not think that I have nothing to hide but I am somewhat "used to" more information than I would normally give up being accessible via the internet.