{"id":729,"date":"2020-02-06T10:14:16","date_gmt":"2020-02-06T07:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/trage\/?p=729"},"modified":"2022-10-13T16:10:48","modified_gmt":"2022-10-13T13:10:48","slug":"why-social-media-should-pay-us-in-exchange-for-our-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogit.utu.fi\/trage\/2020\/02\/06\/why-social-media-should-pay-us-in-exchange-for-our-data\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Social Media Should Pay Us in Exchange for Our Data"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Prunelle Dauty<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This blog post was produced as part of the course \u201cSocial Media, Ideologies, and Ethics in the United States\u201d at the University of Turku.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Social Media are everywhere nowadays, and whether we like it or not, we need to use them in our everyday life. They are slowly becoming indispensable, and not using them means being isolated from the rest of the world. The question is: is that something bad? Not necessarily. Social media are making our life so much easier, allowing us to communicate across the globe in real time. They are also giving a voice to people who have been oppressed for a long time, and who are finally able to speak up! But \u2013 because there is always a but \u2013 there is a flip side to those amazing possiblities that social media are offering us. That flip side is that in exchange for all of those advantages, we are giving them our personal information. They have access to our whole life through our phones, and they are using it to make money. I know, it sounds like a lame remake of George Orwell’s 1984<\/em>, but wake up guys, this is the sad reality. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Social Media are\neverywhere nowadays, and whether we like it or not, we need to use them in our\neveryday life. They are slowly becoming indispensable, and not using them means\nbeing isolated from the rest of the world. The question is: is that something\nbad? Not necessarily. Social media are making our life so much easier, allowing\nus to communicate across the globe in real time. They are also giving a voice\nto people who have been oppressed for a long time, and who are finally able to\nspeak up! But \u2013 because there is always a but \u2013 there is a flip side to those\namazing possiblities that social media are offering us. That flip side is that\nin exchange for all of those advantages, we are giving them our personal\ninformation. They have access to our whole life through our phones, and they\nare using it to make money. I know, it sounds like a lame remake of George\nOrwell’s 1984<\/em>, but wake up guys, this\nis the sad reality. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Image: Pinterest<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Cambrige Analytica\nscandal<\/a> is generally the\nfirst affair that comes to our minds when the misuse of data is mentioned.\nIndeed, a couple of years ago, it became known that during the U.S. 2016\npresidential election campaign Cambridge Analytica, a company that worked with\nDonald Trump’s election team, harvested millions of Facebook profiles in order\nto be able to influence them and make them vote for Trump. Following the\nscandal, Facebook defended itself explaining that it had nothing to do with it.\nThis brings up the question of data protection. How can we protect ourselves\nfrom those companies? It seems impossible without quitting social media. As it\nwas demonstrated by CBC News in their very instructive video \u201cPrivacy and smartphone\napps: What data your phone may be giving away\u201d<\/a> (you should definitely check\nit out if you haven’t watched it yet), protecting our personal data is\ncomplicated and except if we are ready to read the thousands of pages of users\nconditions, we are giving away all of our data without even benefiting from it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is the interesting part: if we can’t stop using social media, and we can’t really stop them from using our data either, maybe we could try to benefit from it?\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Andrew Yang, a potential candidate for the\npresidential election and former tech executive, mentioned this idea during the\nDemocratic presidential debate at Otterbein University in Ohio on October 15,\n2019. He explained that \u201cright now, our data is worth more than oil\u201d and that\nit would be only fair if the users \u201cget a slice\u201d of the money that their data\nis making. In addition, it would be a good way to gain back power against the large-scale\ncompanies. This idea is not new, and several federal lawmakers have already\ntried to implement it in different states, but as of yet without success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my opinion, this\nwould be a solution to all of those data protection problems. It would be a way\nfor the users to gain back the power that they have lost during these last\nyears, and while failing to fully protect our data, it would at least offer us\ncompensation and perhaps also the possibility to choose the information that we\nshare. Indeed, being paid in exchange for sharing data would imply that the\nusers\u2019 permission and maybe even a signed contract is required, because as soon\nas money is involved, regulations are made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sources:<\/p>\n\n\n\n