Friday, March 23, 2018

Don't Click

I’m secretive. I don’t know if it’s my natural inclination or did it evolve because I’m an only and didn’t have a confidence-sharing sibling. Or am I secretive because, I moved to George School, a non-trusting environment, when I was thirteen. Regardless of the reason, I keep my own counsel; don’t share personal stuff with many people. I read my FB feed daily, it’s the way I keep up with friends and family who don’t live close, but seldom post personal information.

How is FB monetized? Nothing’s free but we don’t pay a fee for our accounts. Of course there are the ads, targeted to our interests, but what else? All those sites that wanna collect your personal information? What do they do with it? Every time I clicked on something that asked if they could collect additional information on me, I opted out.

Some of my FB friends were ballistic about the Cambridge Analytica data breech, furious that it took Zuckerberg several days to respond. What could he say beyond we fucked and propose new measures he hopes will work? The uses and misuses of social media seem to expand exponentially each month. How do you stay ahead of that curve? Whoopi’s solution one morning on The View was don’t click.

But it’s too late. I was shocked to learn how much algorithms learn about us exclusively from our “like” clicks. I didn’t click any likes on FB for several days after I read that article. But what does stopping now accomplish? They’ve already accrued too much information.

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