Business, privacy, social media: Can’t we just all get along?

“If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place”
-Google CEO Eric Schmidt [1]

Over the past weeks we have inspected and dissected our actions on the web, both social and professional, separately and combined but with the overbearing implicit theme that the walls between aspects of our life are slowly starting to crumble. This can at times be beneficial, giving thousands of people more opportunities than ever to become employed [2] or, ironically, cause people to lose their jobs  [3].

The ethical issues that arise here can be whittled down to those of web denizens understanding their rights to privacy and freedom of speech, whilst also being aware of their limits, while for businesses maybe there should be stricter enforcement on how much information they are allowed to gain online to influence their decision on hiring someone or not.

Taking our initial quote from Eric Schmidt, and by extension a corporate view of the web, for example, we should consider that 83% of people use the internet for information on medical conditions [4], and while a company can’t assess your medical history at source by law, they may use search history to come to their own conclusions. This logic can be applied to a host of actions that humans need privacy to undertake and as Bruce Schneier explains:

For if we are observed in all matters, we are constantly under threat of correction, judgment, criticism, even plagiarism of our own uniqueness. We become children, fettered under watchful eyes, constantly fearful that — either now or in the uncertain future — patterns we leave behind will be brought back to implicate us, by whatever authority has now become focused upon our once-private and innocent acts. We lose our individuality, because everything we do is observable and recordable. [5]
– Bruce Schneier

From an Economics stance, a corporation always wants to have as full information about those who it hires as possible, and as cost-efficiently as possible, but this can create one of two situations for web users:

One is that the web user is aware of possible surveillance of their actions online, creating a Panopticon [6] type situation, where this fear that they could be being watched is enough to constrain their freedom and actions to fit the wants of a firm.

The other aspect is a user who is unaware of potential surveillance, where they may be more free to post their opinions online, but without a good knowledge of the limits of the law, they could find themselves being punished without being any the wiser.

I believe if we are to continue integrating various aspects of our lives on the web that users must have it made clear to them, not buried within reams of text in a Terms & Conditions agreement, what their rights are. The law should also recognise the incentive for firms to abuse this system also, and seek to make the web an even playing field that can be benefited from by all.

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399 Words (Sans quotes and source numbers)

Sources:

Featured Image:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ilifeinicity/13048344414/

1. Eric Schmidt:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6e7wfDHzew
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/google-ceo-eric-schmidt-dismisses-privacy

2.Jobvite Social Recruiting Survey

Click to access Jobvite_SocialRecruiting_Survey2014.pdf

3.New York Times – How one stupid tweet ruined Justine Sacco’s life

4.Health on the net foundation – Evolution of Internet use for health purposes

http://www.hon.ch/Survey/FebMar2001/survey.html

5.The Eternal Value of Privacy – Bruce Schneier

The Eternal Value of Privacy

6.The Internet, a tool for Art? – Karen Eliot

http://kareneliot.de/thesis_surveillance.html

Not directly referenced, but hugely inspired by Glenn Greenwald’s TED speech, ‘Why Privacy Matters’ (do watch it if you haven’t yet!):