Everyone is watching you

Blog Assignment: Based on our discussion of the surveillant nature of Facebook, what other parallels can you see with other social media sources? How do we surveil each other (nevermind what the government does to us)? What problems does this pose to the argument to limit [government] surveillance of the public? In similarities to how Facebook watches our activities, instagram also shows some patterns of surveillance among our accounts. For example, when I first made my instagram account I started liking certain pictures about a certain topic. As weeks passed I started noticing that I got a lot of suggestions of the same topics I was following. Today, my instagram feed is full of suggested posts over what I have recently watched and liked. The more I change what I watch then the more those suggestions change. This is somewhat similar to the way Facebook observes what we watch and then suggests similar content. You can see this as an invasion to our privacy in some ways but also as a way to help us stay engaged and discover content we might be interested in. At the end of the day we do use social media to observe what others do. We watch where they are, with who they are, and what they are doing. However, we have to ask ourselves to what extent is this considered okay? The government could potentially infiltrate our banking accounts, personal information, and etc. Social media is a friend of ours but what happens when it crosses the line?