I don’t think you can turn in any direction these days without crossing the path of some news about the NSA and their total; and apparently unrestricted, surveillance of the world. Everyone seems to have something to say about the revelations that Glenn Greenwald has been doling out from the Edward Snowden information cache.
NSA mouthpieces say that Snowden should be hung. The New York Times editorial board pointlessly say he should be getting a pardon. Bloggers around the blogosphere chime in with cries about how our privacy is being invaded. Everyone is pointing fingers and I don’t know whether to laugh or just shake my head in disgust of the hypocrisy flowing everywhere.
The NSALook, let’s get something straight. The NSA, also known as the National Signals Agency, has one job, and only one job; which is to gather all the information they can by whatever means they can, on anyone that they feel like.
To think that given our incredible technological advances that a spy agency like the NSA wouldn’t use, and create, modern tools to make their job easier is an idiot. Of course they are and given the mindset following 9/11; and the overall governmental attitude from both Congress and the White House of do whatever it takes to get the job done, means it is a whole new ballgame.
The point can be made that they have greatly overstepped their bounds with their indiscriminate collection of data on both American citizens and foreign countries, and while I may agree with that point of view that isn’t the point of discussion here.
What is the point is the ridiculousness of people, and companies – especially tech companies – getting all up in arms about the NSA’s actions when what these companies do every day is exactly the same thing.
Social MediaAs an overarching entity social media has been built around the very same idea as what the NSA is being condemned for. The constant collection of user information for use by companies and advertisers.
There are those out there that will immediately jump all over statements like that proclaiming that social media is all about the people and making new connections and friendships. In answer to that I can only say that anyone who spews that line is being totally disingenuous.
Social media has, and will always be about marketing, and as any marketer will tell you successful marketing requires as much information about a person; or groups of people, as possible. Prior to social media this meant things like focus groups, mass mail surveys, and seemingly innocuous things like loyalty cards.
With social media though marketing companies have a real time firehose of consumer information that doesn’t cost them anything near what pre-social media methods did. Plus people are falling all over themselves to give away this “personal” information. From services like Foursquare to Twitter, pinterest to Instagram, and tumblr to Facebook the flow of free consumer information to marketers continues unabated.
Of course some will point out that much of the information that the NSA is collecting is perceived as private information, like the meta information about phone calls or your use of the Internet. Well if you think that marketers and companies haven’t had access to that kind of information for years you are living in a dream world.
How many times have you signed up for some service to only find yourself suddenly getting all kinds of junk mail; or how about all that information you have handed over every time you use some air miles card. This doesn’t even take into account things like those telemarketers, who somehow start calling you on your unlisted phone number.
Now in the age of social media however, we seem to fall all over ourselves to give away just about everything we are doing in our lives. We give away what we are doing, where we are, what we are thinking, and most importantly what we are buying.
For marketers this is the veritable motherlode and they suck it up like a Dyson vacuum cleaner on overdrive. Our every move is watched, collected, and analysed for no other reason, or so we think, than to sell us stuff, or it is by companies who exist to be nothing more than funnels for marketers.
FacebookChief among them is Facebook, and really if we are being honest with ourselves Facebook is nothing more than a public sector NSA. Both of them indiscriminately collect information about us and both of them lock it away in vaults that they do everything they can to keep away from us. In the case of the NSA they share that information with government agencies whereas Facebook shares it with companies and marketers, for a price.
Everything that Facebook does is about getting us to knowingly, or unknowingly, share everything with, or perhaps through them. The company spends millions of finding more, and easier, ways to get you to divulge everything you are doing and thinking with your friends. Of course this sharing goes through them which means everything can be collected, stored, and analysed – just like the NSA.
Sure we might beyotch and moan about Facebook and its practices, but that hasn’t changed the way we use the service one iota. Facebook is still the largest social media network in the world with over 1.19 billion monthly users (as of September 30, 2013) and everyone one of those users is sharing something of value to both Facebook and marketers.
Our Privacy HypocrisySo here we are in 2014, the NSA is our favorite whipping boy and Facebook is still our favorite sharing ground, with the exception of when it makes a quickly corrected error. In both cases we have totally unrestricted data collection with absolutely no oversight. One is supposedly being done to protect us and the other is done to make money off of us.
It also doesn’t hurt that Facebook has accomplices, perhaps unwittingly, who champion this new world of openness. People like Robert Scoble or Leo Laporte talk at length about living in the open where everything they do is public. Of course we have people who deride openness champions like Robert or Leo but the fact is we are sharing more.
Sometimes our sharing becomes memes we laugh at, sometimes our sharing costs us jobs; but that doesn’t change the fact that the very thing we are lambasting the government and the NSA for we are doing willing every minute of the day, every day of the week, on sites like Facebook, Twitter, ad nauseum.
The fact is you can’t have both. You can’t do what you do everyday on sites like those and still rant and rave about the NSA invading your privacy. When it comes down to it the NSA could monitor every single social media outlet there is and be able to gather probably as much data, or maybe even more in some case, about us as they do currently; and they wouldn’t be breaching your privacy.
If you want to condemn the government and the NSA (and agencies like them around the world) then you have to do the same to Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and any other social media service you use. They all do the same thing – they collect your information and then resell it to the highest bidder.
In the case of the NSA it is the government and law enforcement. In the case of Facebook it is businesses and marketers.
If you believe there is any difference between the two then you are living in a dream world. Maybe one brought to you by Facebook and the companies buying your information.
http://www.winextra.com/tech/the-nsa-fa ... hypocrisy/
