Facebook Privacy

How private is your Facebook?… What is there to hide?… Who are you hiding from?

Privacy among social media platforms are a constantly debated topic. These debates range from how much a stranger can see of your page to how much a large corporation or even the government can see of your page.

Take the Privacy Challenge!

Although it is nearly impossible to discover how much access major corporations and the government can see, we can however, discover how much a stranger can uncover if they search our fabulous name. To partake in this challenge, simply think about your privacy settings. Don’t look… Don’t do it. Then log out of your Facebook and attempt to view your page. What can you see?

Before logging out I thought I was relatively private. Only displaying personal information and photos to my friends ONLY. However, once logged out I was badly mistaken. Apparently I must have dreamed that I had changed my privacy settings. My Facebook page is wide OPEN to anyone that wants to have a nosey. Do you want my age, location and my partner’s name? Sure have at it!

What About Others?

Although I don’t share much of my life on social media, when I brought this topic up with colleagues of mine, some stories were shocking. From teachers finding personal emails and social media accounts (with good intentions) to make contact, all the way to blocked people popping up in their emails and direct messaging systems on other social media platforms (with not so good intentions).

If there is any lesson here to be learned, DOUBLE CHECK YOUR PRIVACY SETTINGS!

Self-Branding

Self-Branding, as Alice Marwick puts it, is a “promotional culture” where everyone is striving to promote and broadcast their personal brand to become, what Marwick calls, “micro-celebrities” of the top dogs. Essentially becoming a smaller, baby version of our dreams. You’ve got to start somewhere right?

My Experience with Self-Branding

I have experienced this drive to become a “micro-celebrity” myself. About six years ago I created a Youtube channel aimed to provide jazzy edits of the popular video game Call of Duty. I had dreams of becoming Youtube famous like Pewdiepie and WoodysGamertag. 

To get my name out there, I created as many social media platforms as I could to ensure my content was being broadcasted to the maximum audience. I linked my Facebook and Twitter accounts to my Youtube account so that whenever I uploaded a video, liked a video or even commented on a video, my viewers would see my name pop up on their screens. The system was simple, the more active I was, the more I was seen.

This active web of interaction between my content and my viewers, saw my subscriber and view counts skyrocketing (in my mind haha) I reached an “amazing” one hundred subscribers and peaked at 500 views. However, as work and school commitments increased, my ability to continue being active on social media diminished creating a stall in my self-branding. This sudden drop in activity resulted in my upward trending brand falling level and beginning to drop.

Key to Self-Branding

Like Marwick presents, through Tom Peters’ work, we’re all striving to establish our own micro equivalent of top dogs like the Nike swoosh and we all have the chance to stand out and be recognised thanks to the power of social media. Through my own experience, I had found that the key to continued success in “self-branding” is simply to remain as active as possible to ensure your best foot is always forward and your content is on as many screens as possible.

Social Media Marketing

With over 2 billion monthly users, Facebook has become a major player in the world of marketing. Digital marketing power ‘Zephoria’ claim that “one in five page views,” in America alone, “occurs via Facebook” but to achieve this remarkable statistic, the right advertisements need to reach the right people and to ensure that happens, algorithms and in depth surveillance is required.

Algorithms and Surveillance

Tarleton Gillespie published his blog Algorithms, clickworkers, and the befuddled fury around Facebook Trends where he explains various ways in which Facebook manipulates the content we see every time we open our Facebook app.

Gillespie claims that Facebook has created a somewhat bias algorithm determine what is trending and broadcast it to the masses. This requires a great level of surveillance and technical algorithms, tracking every like, share, and comment of every user on the planet. But without it, the power of social media marketing may not be so powerful.

What Facebook Pushes to My Screen

After tracking and analysing my own personal activity on my Facebook account, Facebook pushes what (they think) most suits my lifestyle and interests.

Touching on my personal interests, Facebook pushes a kind reminder of my unhealthy eating habits through a McDonald’s advertisement. Soon followed by an enticing possibility of a sunny holiday in Shanghai for only $459 one way!

 

Then touching on current trends and keeping my age in mind, Facebook pushes a relatable NZ politics advertisement to my screen. This was soon followed by another trending topic of acknowledging trans-gender athletes by pushing a moving story of a trans-gender athlete climbing the Volleyball ranks.

These examples of social media marketing highlight Gillespie’s claim that Facebook has an overwhelming control over what is broadcasted to the masses based on technical algorithms and deep surveillance of ever one of their 2 billion monthly users. Pair this with the marketing team’s of large companies, their domination of the marketing world is clear.

Living Through a Messenger

Have you ever heard your parents tell you that wouldn’t be able to live without your phone? I have… many times. Have you ever given any thought about it? I haven’t… until now. I asked myself the question of how important is this 14cmx7cm device in my everyday life? Could I live without? So over the last three days, I decided to limit my methods of communication to the Facebook Messenger app only in the hopes that I would finally have an answer to my nagging parent’s claims.

Cons

Over the last three days, I have encountered countless situations where face-to-face communication or verbal communication over the phone would be the practical and most suitable method of communication and so many complications surfaced due to my inability  to use such methods. The most common issues that I encountered were:

• Delay in communication.
• Misinterpretation of content.

Communicating with family and friends of a similar age range was relatively simple. There were very little delays in communication because they regularly checked their social media accounts. However, I experienced a great deal of communication delay with family and friends of an older age range as they’re not as active on their social media accounts, despite all having social media accounts. This meant getting hold of an older family member took quite some time.

Because I wasn’t communicating face-to-face, I often encountered problems with misinterpretations of both communication lines. Because there was no way to interpret facial expression and tone of voice, messages were often read in a variety of ways, causing complications and, in some cases, further delays in communication.

Through these experiences only, my chances of surviving in this world with nothing but this 14cmx7cm device seems very unlikely.

Pros

Despite experiencing various complications in the delay and misinterpretation of communication, I found, in one case, that an acquaintance of mine (that is VERY shy) had communicated more openly and freely due to the lack of face-to-face contact. This is where I find this little device to be so essential in our everyday life.

Whether we use Facebook Messenger, Twitter Direct Message, Instagram Direct Message or simply our phone’s SMS, the ability to reach out to people that we wouldn’t usually have to courage to do so is essential to expanding our social life.

Alice Marwick, in her work titled “The Public Domain: Social Surveillance in Everyday Life,” describes her idea of ‘Social Surveillance” where our social media accounts may broadcast a different version of ourselves. Marwick’s idea of ‘Social Surveillance’ translates to my experience with a drastic change in personality between a social media platform and real life.

Conclusion

I hate to say this but… My parents were right! I feel as though communicating only through a social media platform is way to complicated and, to get your genuine message across, verbal or visual contact must be present.

However, I don’t believe that communication via a social media platform isn’t useful at all. The ability to reach out and expand outside of our comfort zone with little to no risk of embarrassment is essential in expanding our social circle and bettering our social life.

So I guess what I should say is… Mum, Dad… you were kind of right.

 

President Trump’s Media

Over the last 18 months Donald J. Trump has caused quite a stir among people all around the world. His, somewhat, radical views and ideas are broadcasted worldwide through his Twitter and Instagram accounts. Despite being operated by the same person, the broadcasted message is quite different.

Twitter 

Donald Trump’s twitter account has received a lot of criticism due to his somewhat radical ideas. In a tweet (pictured below) directed toward the hosts of Morning Joe, Trump attacked the hosts by calling, Morning Joe host, Mika Brzezinski a “low I.Q. Crazy Mika” and, Morning Joe host, Joe Scarborough a “psycho” and claims she was “bleeding badly from a facelift” on New Years Eve.

Donald Trump’s remarks toward Morning Joe hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough are broadcasted to the world generating widespread criticism from the bullying nature of his tweets. Trump’s fellow republicans, Senator Ben Sasse and Senator Linsey Graham, tweeted “Please just stop. This isn’t normal and it’s beneath the dignity of your office.” and “Mr. President, your tweet was beneath the office…” despite President Trump’s twitter account receiving widespread criticism, his Instagram account, however, generates a different response.

Instagram

President Trump’s Instagram account, being primarily visual, seems to limit Trump’s ability to present his thoughts and ideas directly. The account is saturated with patriotic images reinforcing Trump’s moto of making “America Great Again.” These images produce a generally positive response from the public.

However, when President Trump attempts to merge the two platforms by posting a picture of a tweet he made, the negative criticism is generated once again.

Affordances

The difference in responses between the two platforms demonstrate James J. Gibson’s idea of “affordances.” Each social media platforms present their own possibilities of interpretation. President Trump’s twitter allows for a more direct communication to the viewers while his Instagram account allows for viewers to attribute their own interpretations without the force of Trump’s direct words guiding them. These interpretations therefore lead to various protest actions and support actions depending on what platform is viewed.