I have a friend on Facebook who has a tendency to post links to alarmist stories about how governments are monitoring our social media usage, how Twitter knows more about me than I know about myself, and how Facebook owns every bit of information I have ever shared and will use it against me in a court of law.
Getting worked up about the possibility that a Sherlock Holmes wannabe is just waiting for me to type the word 'terrorism' so he can write my name in his Little Black Book is all a little silly - and too late for me now, if he is.
Tarryn Giebelmann, sub-editor, ITWeb
Statements along the lines of “Wake up, people” usually accompany these posts - all in capital letters and with about 50 exclamation marks at the end.
What I find amusing about this is that, even though said friend is convinced Big Brother is watching our every move, I know she would never delete her social media accounts. She's obviously passionate about this, but deleting her accounts would mean she no longer has a platform to broadcast these scare tactics from.
I never click through to these stories. Maybe it's denial; maybe it's because I know that whatever I post in the social media space is not overly personal or questionable. Maybe it's because I think getting worked up about the possibility that a Sherlock Holmes wannabe is just waiting for me to type the word 'terrorism' so he can write my name in his Little Black Book is all a little silly - and too late for me now, if he is.
We all use social media, we all interact with strangers; freaking out now and trying to erase our digital footprints is not going to make any difference in the grand scheme of things - what's done cannot be undone and all that.
So I skim past these horror stories, naively believing that only those who I have given the pass to can see my online shenanigans. Until now, that is.
There was quite a bit of commotion recently when it was discovered that employers were asking potential employees to disclose their Facebook passwords in interviews so that they could do some snooping. Aside from this being a gross violation of privacy, there was some comfort in the fact that interviewees could refuse and the potential employer could not access their personal online lives until they gave up their login credentials.
But that was then.
Now, things are starting to get a bit worrying.
Path.To, a US start-up, recently announced a service that trawls your online activity to see how well matched you are to jobs that are posted to its site by potential employers. The thinking behind the initiative seems genuine - essentially, the job offers will come to you if you fit the bill, rather than you having to hunt them down yourself. Good idea, yes?
But the opening paragraph of the above story is somewhat unsettling: “Get ready for a world where whether you land a particular job doesn't depend so much on what's written on your resume, or even on glowing references [from] former employers, but instead on information about you floating around the Web.”
The article goes on to say that the service will “assess your skills, reputation, and passion in certain areas based on your participation [on social media sites] and then factor those findings into their calculations about how well suited you are for specific job openings”.
This is how I understood it. I'm passionate about rhino poaching. So if I post gruesome pictures of poached rhinos, sign anti-poaching petitions until I'm blue in the face, and 'like' a Facebook page of an anti-poaching group, does that make me suitable for a conservationist position?
Having studied language and journalism, I think not.
So why exactly am I studying towards an Honours degree when I can blog about language, repost YouTube videos of Stephen Fry and join an editors' group on LinkedIn? Surely this makes me a linguist?
It all seemed a bit odd to me, so I contacted Path.To founder and VP of product, Darren Bounds. Turns out it's not as scary, or straightforward, as it seems. Path.To is an opt-in service that only scans your public information on social networks (this is also optional). It takes into account members' skills, experience and personality to match them with not only suitable positions, but also to work environments they might prefer. It looks into users' interests and passions and aligns these with a particular role. Bounds stresses, however, that at no point is this information divulged to the employer or anyone else - “it is merely a signal used to help identify compatibility with a particular role and business, personally and professionally”.
But, alas, I stray from the topic - more on this on ITWeb soon.
The question is - is this not much different from handing your Facebook password over to a potential employer and hoping for the best? Granted, the employer would never see this information, but I would imagine you would need a blemish-free, impeccable social media record if you're hoping to use that record to secure a professional position.
This is the devil you know - you've given permission. But what about the devil you don't know?
Turns out my paranoid friend was on to something all along.
Just the other day, another friend told me that her boyfriend, we'll call him Bob, had somehow ended up on a terror watch list and only found this out when trying to secure a US visa. Now Bob is the most unassuming, harmless man I have probably ever met. You don't get a gentler soul or a quieter demeanour than Bob's. So how on Earth did he end up on a terror watch list?
This baffled my friend, too, who thought long and hard about it and came to the conclusion that his Facebook profile and what he posted probably had something to do with it. Bob once had a profile picture of himself wearing a towel on his head, Taliban-style, and might have posted a status once about being forced to flee an African country undercover after secretly filming human rights violations. This, apparently, makes him a terrorist.
And it seems governments are serious about monitoring our online activity.
Former UK intelligence chief Sir David Omand has said that police and intelligence officials should be allowed to monitor the communication activities of terrorists and paedophiles. He's even given it a name - Socmint is the monitoring and collection of social media intelligence.
Now, I have no problem with this - using social media monitoring to catch the bad guys is a genius idea - but what about poor Bob? A harmless post means he won't be allowed to visit America for a very long time, if at all. And where will the line be drawn? Does it stop with terrorists and paedophiles, or will the circle be expanded and excuses conjured up about why everyone should be monitored? Will they start scanning our posts for certain keywords? Will they use face recognition technology to ensure we're not best mates with a serial killer?
And if we do end up on these watch lists, how do we prove our innocence and do the powers that be even care?
I have never dwelled much on the topic, but it's now gotten a bit too close to home and it's probably something we should all start thinking seriously about.
I skimmed through my own Facebook photos and they're mostly harmless. Well, apart from the fact that, if I see a photo op of a giant Buzz Lightyear cardboard poster with Buzz's face cut out, guaranteed I'm going to put my face in that gap. I've done this quite a few times, in fact. Other than possibly putting me on a mental health watch list, I'm pretty certain I'm not considered a terrorist.
Then again, that's what I thought about Bob.
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