We have been creating our Social Media site and writing these blogs at a time when the national and international news agenda has been dominated at various times with stories of how Facebook allowed some researchers to mine personal data from millions of their users without their knowledge. Although for some the story wasn’t news, in that the behaviour of Facebook was pretty well the ‘public knowledge’ in some circles, press and politicians have been quick to see the scandal and have picked up on the disgust of the general public.
The news story was first published by The Guardian newspaper who had spent a year investigating the story. Their newspaper has probably the most thorough and comprehensive selection of articles outlining the breadth and depth of the story. If you want to understand more of the details of the story then visiting the Guardian’s Cambridge Analytica homepage is a good starting point.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/series/cambridge-analytica-files
Some would say the printed press have an interest in diminishing the power of the new social media giants since they have been so successful in attracting advertising revenue away from both the printed press and television. Even so, the story has brought to the fore the sometimes cavalier way in which the social media companies gain permission to use personal data and then sell on that data to others. The social media company’s oversight of who does what with the data has been less than rigorous.
The Cambridge Analytical story demonstrates that even the large social media companies need to be mindful about their users. People are fickle, and it is important to many about how their data is gathered and used. The final upshot of the story is still unknown. We are in the early days and there may or may well be further revelations.
Walking away from social media
One user of social media, the pub chain Weatherspoons announced that they were leaving Facebook and Twitter – citing it as a waste of time for their pub managers to Tweet and post images of pints of beer. Some commentators observed that Weatherspoons didn’t really have a very effective social media policy in the first place. So this move is unlikely to harm the brand!
Mining publicly available social media data
There is a stream of data from social media that is available to everyone. This includes Twitter’s #hashtags that exist to allow users to follow wider conversations and anyone who owns a ‘public’ account that can be viewed universally. Although as Chris Bousquet points out below, many in government and the police are starting to follow certain #hashtags with the aim of identifying potential or actual crimes. This area is fraught from a moral and ethical standpoint. The article is written from the standpoint of an American with an eye to civil freedoms and liberties, but it resonates with the United Kingdom.
http://www.govtech.com/public-safety/Mining-Social-Media-Data-for-Policing-the-Ethical-Way.html
Parenting
Still considering freedoms and liberties, ‘The Independent’ has been exercised about the behaviour of parents on social media with particular reference to how they record and share the lives of their children on social media. At one point they suggest that parents should seek permission from their children before posting any images. The newspaper demonstrates a keen awareness of the digital footprint that is left at the earliest of ages.
Image: https://thesocialmediamonthly.com/younger-hispanics-turn-to-social-media-for-news/
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