Do Facebook, Google, Twitter, Apple and Amazon have too much
power? To put it simply, I’ve heard two sides to the argument upon discussion
with colleagues and friends as well as after reading several articles.
1) Yes. It’s scary.
2) If you don’t want to use their products, just don’t! They
do not have control over what you use or do not use.
We can start with point 1. Facebook has become ingrained in
our everyday lives, for some, the first thing they do (me included) is check
their notifications... messages… etc. when they arise from their (social
network) slumber, or in other words when they wake up. I would argue that an
example of their power was when they introduced the messenger app and pretty
much forced people to download it in other to use Facebook messenger to chat
with their friends and the app came with some controversy.
“… the real controversy emerged when new downloaders
discovered that the app, especially on Android, was asking for a whole raft of
permissions. These included the ability to read your SMS messages, read your
phone call log and access the photo roll on your device.” (Lifehacker, 2014)
Yes, this sounds scary. Access to numbers and reading all my
stuff? Wow.
But on the flip side of the argument,
“…the permissions Facebook is asking for are needed for the
app to be able to work in the way its users want.
‘If you’re going to add voice-calls at some point, you’ll
need to access and sync your contacts.
‘If you want to take photos, the app will need access to
your gallery. These are needed, however Facebook probably could have
communicated this better.’ " (Daily Mail, 2014)
So perhaps Facebook is just trying to provide better
service? Or do they want access to our information - we all know how much money
they make from advertising... which leaves me on the fence. Anyway, I still
have the old version of Facebook that has the messenger app, and I'm holding on
to it as long as possible. I guess it seems like I'm leaning towards one side
of the fence.
What about all the debates on Facebook's algorithm? The
following explains what it does...
"So they’ve tailored their “EdgeRank” algorithm to
consider, for each status update from each friend you might receive, not only
when it was posted (more recent is better) but other factors, including how
regularly you interact with that user (e.g. liking or commenting on their
posts), how popular they are on the service and among your mutual friends, and
so forth. A post with a high rating will show up, a post with a lower rating
will not." (Culture Digitally, 2014).
For me, this isn't a huge problem. I wouldn't want to read
boring stuff anyway. BUT this section of the article has got me thinking... The
article argues that on one hand, we have
“trusted interpersonal information conduits” — the telephone
companies, the post office. Users gave them information aimed for others and
the service was entrusted to deliver that information. We expected them not to
curate or even monitor that content. On
the other hand, we had “media content producers” — radio, film, magazines,
newspapers, television, video games... We knew that producers made careful
selections based on appealing to us as audiences, and deliberately played on our
emotions as part of their design.
Thus...
.... we would be surprised, outraged, to find out that the
post office delivered only some of the letters addressed to us, in order to
give us the most emotionally engaging mail experience."
This is kind of what Facebook is doing! Although I would
argue that if you send someone a message on Facebook, he/she WILL see it. So
the user should know that they won't see everything their friends post, but
will receive personal messages, just like mails from the post office (except
Facebook probably has access to it)....
Going back to point 2... you could stop using their products
and not give them 'power', but can you really live without
Facebook/Google/Twitter/Apple? It's just so much more convenient. Keeping in touch
on facebook, using the search engine/ google maps, getting snippets of
information I'm interested in on Twitter, the convenience of my Iphone... I know it would be hard for me to give it all
up, so do I really have a choice not to use them?
REFERENCES
http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2014/08/how-messenger-highlighted-facebooks-privacy-problem/
http://culturedigitally.org/2014/07/facebooks-algorithm-why-our-assumptions-are-wrong-and-our-concerns-are-right/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2724728/The-Facebook-Messenger-backlash-Reviewers-flock-complain-experts-raise-concerns-privacy-controls.html
No comments:
Post a Comment