The social media phenomenon took the world by storm. We all jumped in head first and were having a blast. It wasn't until later that we realized these awesome and fun new ways to communicate were monitoring every move we made online. Surveillance in this country and all other countries is a necessity for national security. What we weren't ready for was that same level of surveillance on our favorite websites.
The one issue I had with social media was the lack of regulatory requirements from the federal or state governments. This lack of regulations on information being stored and shared with third parties, made me stop sharing so much information on these websites. I informed my wife to stop sharing our children's photos online when Facebook issued a statement that any pictures shared on their platform was their property. Like how do you tell me my family portraits are yours because I shared them on your site that you encouraged me to share them on? So to go from taking ownership of our pictures to monitoring our daily online presence is a serious privacy concern.
These tech companies and social media conglomerates were given too much power. When there are no checks and balances there's bound to be egregious misuse of power. Following people around and using unapproved surveillance methods to control how they shop and spend their money isn't what the average social media participant expected to deal with. Unfortunately they got away with it for so long, I don't know if there's a way to prevent it from continuing.
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