Even In Your Home, Your Life Is Not So Private

Due to technology, gone are the days of being left alone and isolated. Sure, if you want to go off grid and not use your cellular devices by all means go ahead, but you are still not as invisible as it may seem. Due to apps like Snapchat and Find My Friends, it is now easier than ever to see where your friends and family are at all times, which means that even when you don't tell people where you are they still know. It is an undeniable fact that your phone can track you in ways that it never has before, but so can your local police force.

Catherine Crump briefly spoke during her Ted Talk about how police officers are able to track the daily activities of many Americans. They do this with the help of license plate detectors that pick up the license plate numbers of cars that pass by and track where they are going. At first they only tracked the plates of cars that have been suspected of suspicious activity, but know, it is every car that passes by. The government now knows the habits and activities that Americans do everyday. In one example, a man went to his local police department to find out what happened when they tracked his plates. There were numerous instances listed and they showed where he was, where he was going, and who he was with. In one occurrence, the photos showed the man and his daughters getting out of their car. 

What does all of this mean? In short, it means that we cannot go anywhere without being monitored by some sort of external force. The privacy that was once known as total and absolute privacy now has an asterisk next to it which symbolizes that we will never be totally private again. In terms of my local police force tracking my every move while I am driving, I am certainly not a fan of it. Where I am going, who is with me, and what car I am in is no one's business except my own of where I am going and why I am going somewhere, and I am confident in my thinking that others feel the same way.

What's Disinformation?

Per the Merriam-Webster dictionary, disinformation is defined as being any false information deliberately and covertly spread (as by the planting of rumors) in order to influence public opinion or obscure the truth. This does not only have to be done by a government, although it has, but it can also be done by fake media outlets. Simply put, disinformation is, in its simplest form, "fake news". One of the worst things about this is once it is out there, it is incredibly hard to stop from spreading.

Dominik Stecula, a political science student at the University of British Columbia, conducted a study of his own to see how certain people react to disinformation and if they can spot "fake news" when it is presented to them. He surveyed about 700 undergraduate students from his university and showed them screenshots from certain news websites with headlines about the 2016 United States Presidential Election. With some fake news sites mixed in, the task was to prove which headlines and screenshots were real and which ones were fabricated. To say the least, the results he gathered were not what he was expecting. News sites that had no legitimacy were given that status by the students based upon the screenshots that they were seeing. As a result, the disinformation that they were reading about could have been spread rather quickly.  The sites looked legit and had a feel to them that was professional, but the material that was being written and read about was far from it. So, one of the many consequences of disinformation is that people do not know how to tell real news from fake news. This is what allows these fake media entities and websites to keep going and it will not stop until people dig a little deeper into what they are reading. As a matter of fact, 50% of all tweets from the 2016 Election had some fabrication to it. This is an incredibly high percentage, especially for such an important event.

Fake news can also impact our society as a whole. On the other side of the political spectrum, something that Americans are also oddly obsessed with is celebrities. We often times see on social media websites such as Twitter and Facebook that a celebrity has died, and one that comes to mind immediately is Morgan Freeman. He is an icon to many Americans simply due to his acting and the soothing sound of his voice. Of course, he has not passed away yet, but that does not stop people from trying to make a story out of nothing. People from all over the country unite to praise his life and send condolences to his family, only to find out that he is alive and well. This disinformation stems from a fake TMZ account that does not even have a check mark next to its Twitter handle, which is the symbol for being a verified account. Through retweets and likes, our society grieved at the loss of an American legend, who by the way is still living.

My Online Presence

Your online presence is something that has recently become an important part of most American's lives. This, of course, entails what you post, how you post, with whom you post, and why that post is there. These remarks are exactly what businesses will look at and ask themselves when they are considering you for an open job position. I'm 19 turning 20, so this issue is one that I will be facing in the coming months to years of my life. I did not go to the drastic measure of deleting all my social media profiles like this 14 year old girl did, but I did do some thinking about what my profiles and posts say about me.

Probably the most popular and frequently used social media platform amongst teens to early adults is Instagram. My account is private and I believe that it is pretty clean. All of the posts that I have do not show any illegal activity or deviant behavior that has the potential to not get me a job, unlike some other people that I know. All that is their are pictures with my friends, vacation spots, Patriots games that I have attended, and my dog. The same can be said about the pictures that I am tagged in. Most of them are just from friends and family where I am either visible or not visible in the picture, but I was there so I was tagged. The comments under my pictures are clean as well. It is quite easy to maintain this because if there is a comment that I don't like or is not appropriate, then I just delete it so that it is no longer there. So, my Instagram account is pretty clean and the same can be said for my Twitter. This account is private too so not everyone can see what I tweet or like. However, it would not be a bad thing if everyone did. I barely send out my own tweets. Instead, I use the site to keep up with world and sports related news from verified accounts that will get the information out as soon as it is made available. Then, I will retweet it to my timeline. Twitter can become a nasty place with some people who harass certain accounts which gives them no edge what so ever, but that is the reality. Harsh language and motions in videos are often used and spread around the entire website like a wildfire. Instead of retweeting this or liking these tweets even if I may find some amusing, I never do because I do not want certain individuals accounts linked to me that could be detrimental to my future.

My LinkedIn profile is new this year and, to be honest, I am not a big fan of it. Now, my account is clean because I only have my previous jobs, resume, and a couple of assignments on there for future employers to see, but this is something that I barely use. There are so many things that you can tell about a person when you are standing in front of them that you cannot behind a screen. So, you may have someone who seems like a perfect fit for your company on paper, but once you get them to sit down in an interview, you are left wondering why you brought this person in. So my account is fine; it is just rarely ever used.

The account that I worry about the most is Facebook, but it is not because of my posts or what I may be tagged in. I have recently gone through my account and deleted any posts that I did not like and they were all deleted because they were cringey. It was nothing bad, just some awkward posts from a 13 year old boy who is now just a distant memory. I am worried about what Facebook is doing with my information. I like to go on my account and enjoy what others have posted and shared, but the company takes my information and pretty much puts it up for whoever wants to see it or whoever wants to take it. Although all of the privacy settings are turned up to the highest that they can be, I still do not feel as though my account or information is as private is it could and should be.

The Pros and Cons of Using Snapchat

The world of technology is always growing and is not showing any signs of ever slowing down. It seems as though anywhere and everywhere you look Apple, Samsung, Microsoft, and other technology companies are releasing new innovative products that promise to make your life easier. Apps on our smartphones are starting to do the same and a perfect example of this is Snapchat. Through this relatively new app, you are able to communicate simply through pictures, videos, and instant messaging which allows for an easy to way to stay connected. Although some of these features may make it sound like the greatest thing in the world, it can sometimes seem far from it.

Communicating is the easiest that it has ever been and that is thanks to new apps like Snapchat. If you want to talk to someone, but do not have the time to go out somewhere to hang out or meet with them and you still want to see them, then Snapchat is the perfect platform for that. If you don't want to talk to anyone, but you still want people to know what you are doing, then you can put it on your story for all of your friends (and sometimes more) to see. While this may seem perfect and nothing will ever beat it, the reality is that it is far from it. David Murphy of LifeHacker wrote about some privacy issues that surround the app that can really turn some people off of it. First and foremost, your location will always be known to your friends. Snapchat has a map on its app which shows where you are AND what you are doing. I was out at a golf course playing 18 with my buddies, and when I went to look at the map, it showed my bitmoji golfing. This was concerning because I did not tell the app that is what I was doing, but it is becoming the new norm. So, now, your location is never private. Your account is also not as exclusive as it may seem. When you register your account you are asked to put you phone number into it. This may seem harmless considering that many social networking sites do the same, but with your phone number other people can add you without your username simply if they have you in their phone contacts. This can lead to having people you don't want to follow you now looking at your every move.

Snapchat relates to Rogers' Diffusion of Innovations, specifically the social networking portion. With the app continuing to become more popular with each and every day, it takes on greater importance because it allows people to communicate freely. If the app were to crash or be taken away from us, we would have to resort to another form of communicating which would make its users very upset. Ideas can also be spread through Snapchat stories. Companies can pay to advertise their products on the app which will lead to more consumers looking at their products and considering purchasing them. Overall, Snapchat is a great way to communicate, but like every other social network, it has some privacy issues that it must work out.