![\"\"](\"http:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/group1\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/261\/2018\/04\/social-media-source-news1-1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 Although for some the story wasn\u2019t news, in that the behaviour of Facebook was pretty well the \u2018public knowledge\u2019 in some circles, press and politicians have been quick to see the scandal and have picked up on the disgust of the general public.<\/p>\n
The news story was first published by The Guardian newspaper who had spent a year investigating the story.\u00a0Their newspaper has probably the most thorough and comprehensive selection of articles outlining the breadth and depth of the story.\u00a0 If you want to understand more of the details of the story then visiting the Guardian\u2019s Cambridge Analytica homepage is a good starting point.<\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/news\/series\/cambridge-analytica-files<\/a><\/p>\n 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.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The social media company\u2019s oversight of who does what with the data has been less than rigorous.<\/p>\n The Cambridge Analytical story demonstrates that even the large social media companies need to be mindful about their users.\u00a0 People are fickle, and it is important to many about how their data is gathered and used.\u00a0The final upshot of the story is still unknown.\u00a0 We are in the early days and there may or may well be further revelations.<\/p>\n Walking away from social media<\/strong><\/p>\n One user of social media, the pub chain Weatherspoons announced that they were leaving Facebook and Twitter \u2013 citing it as a waste of time for their pub managers to Tweet and post images of pints of beer.\u00a0 Some commentators observed that Weatherspoons didn\u2019t really have a very effective social media policy in the first place.\u00a0 So this move is unlikely to harm the brand!<\/p>\n https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/long_reads\/jd-wetherspoons-twitter-facebook-brand-social-media-marketing-a8318486.html<\/a><\/p>\n Mining publicly available social media data<\/strong><\/p>\n There is a stream of data from social media that is available to everyone.\u00a0 This includes Twitter\u2019s #hashtags that exist to allow users to follow wider conversations and anyone who owns a \u2018public\u2019 account that can be viewed universally.\u00a0 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.\u00a0This area is fraught from a moral and ethical standpoint.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n