With the introduction of new media, I believe privacy and confidentiality were the two most important thing that people comprised in order to have access to all the platforms available today. Platforms such as FaceBook and Google have been collecting information on their user’s that they have been selling to large marketing companies like Acxiom. As stated in article The Wild West of Privacy, “Big data brokers, like Acxiom, have developed sophisticated tools that allow them to know almost as much about us as we know about ourselves; they then sell that data to all kinds of companies that want to learn everything from our habits to our health, from our sexual orientation to our finances.” Sacrificing this data is what has enabled us to browse seamlessly over the web, but is it necessary? The data that is collected on an individual should not be allowed to be sold without the consent of the user. In certain cases, if the user wants to receive advertisements targeted towards their specific purchasing pattern, they should be able to opt-in to the program. On the other hand, if the user does not want this to happen, they should be allowed to opt-out of the program easier than it is to opt-in. One reason companies are able to successfully gather so much information on an individual is due to the long process it takes to opt out of the agreements that enable these companies to gain our information. This tiresome process needs to be eliminated and replaced as it discourages people to find out what exactly they must do in order to opt-out of these programs.
New media has brought along many social media websites such as Twitter, FaceBook, and Instagram where people upload snapshots of their lives on a daily basis. This has made confidentiality for some people almost non-existent, leaving them vulnerable in the future. Although people may not realize in the moment, someone may always have a picture or video that could potentially comprise things such as job positions or school applications in the upcoming future. This happened to an individual named Jon Ossoff who was running as in a special election in Georgia. As stated in the article, “GOP leadership, launched an attack ad Wednesday hitting him with some unflattering college footage. It includes a clip of him dressed as Han Solo in a Star Wars parody of the school's alcohol policy.” This video was used to depict Jon as someone who was a “spoiled brat” and directly attacked his image. I believe people should always be weary of their actions as new media has allowed for information to be spread so quickly and anonymously.
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