Privacy, social media, and Google

Sometimes we keep our social profiles separate for very valid reasons and social media platforms—or technology companies—shouldn’t circumvent those efforts as a means of upping their own social capital value or out of some need to be more “socially-connected.”

What I post and the reasons behind what I post to Twitter are entirely different than what I post to Facebook. What I post to this blog is not always something that I would write about for the paper. Why? Because I have different audiences on every platform and frankly, I have a need for some level of privacy in what has become a very public world. What a novel idea.

Privacy on many of these sites continues to be a point of discussion. Whether it’s utilizing a secured url for login pages on Facebook or Twitter or having the ability to turn off the friendly little cookies that allow you to comment via your Facebook page about articles, videos, and whatever other schlock you might be looking at, privacy is important. People don’t like their information being rifled through—no matter what’s its being used for or not being used for.

Google is the latest to initiate a new “social feature” without being upfront. I run a search on Google this evening and guess what pops up?

When signed into Google, the platform automatically searches for public profiles on social networks that might match yours and it does this without asking your permission to do so first. Doesn’t this sound a little bit like the passive privacy adjustments Facebook’s been crucified for in the past? My Twitter profile is public at this point, but I make a point of privatizing other profiles that I have for the purpose of filtering audiences. I’ve made a point of disallowing Google to keep track of my search history. I’ve now made a point of barring Google from searching for profiles to “connect” to my Google account. I did these things to maintain that minuscule level of privacy that I’d like to keep without having to completely take everything down. 

This isn’t really so much about Google, though. This is about the fact that the concept of privacy has gone away. Not only is it not given most of the time, but increasingly it’s assumed that no one really wants any privacy. We know that we’ve given you our information. We’ve utilized the tools you’ve given us to keep confidential what we deem necessary. How dare you thumb your nose at us in order to get what you want. What happened to personal and professional ethics?

Organic vs Conventional

I’m not talking about the choice in produce at your local supermarket… I’m talking about the fact that technological algorithms have circumvented the organic search and discover process when it comes to nearly everything and anything. Earlier this month, I posted about Twitter’s new “Who to Follow” feature and the fact that I was so disappointed in it -not so much because of the feature’s functionality, but rather due to its very existence and implementation at all. Don’t get me wrong, the notion of suggestive “selling” has been around for a long time -it’s not something brand new or prolific on a fundamental level. However, never before has its status been so elevated to steroid-fed proportions.

Suggestive marketing used to be limited to actual sales of something -services and products. Today, it applies to the “sale” of anything -whether it be a service, a product, a process, a patent (which itself has become something of a product versus a document), a public persona, or even a virtual byway to information, i.e. a hyperlink/profile for “_____” that may provide you with data that may be of interest. Dozens of internet-based services and platforms offer the “Recommended” feature in one shape or form and it’s all based on the accessibility of one’s matrix of contacts, our contacts’ networks, and your historical action with the platform. Beyond the basic suggestions of people to follow, these platforms have added a certain level of “credibility” to their tips by letting you know that someone in your circle knows this person, follows this user, bought this item, and so on. It’s believable that most people will default to referrals from those who make up their inner posse when it comes to most things in life, which is why this line of thinking works. I call this flavor of information exchange conventional because it relies on your trust in someone else versus finding out for yourself -much like seeing pictures of Michelangelo’s David in a book or online versus going to Firenze, Italy and seeing it for yourself.

For me, organic means fumbling around through the trenches yourself. Maybe you hit a restaurant that you end up hating or fall in love with an author whose book you found smashed in a bargain bin at the used bookstore downtown or you legitimately make a new friend at the park after crashing his picnic with his dog or you find a new band because they were the opening act for the Manic Street Preachers -versus checking Yelp to make sure the restaurant is for certain going to be good, reading every single review on Amazon of the #5 book on the NYT Best Seller List, or going off what Clear Channel decides is the band of the moment. I’m not saying that the online options can’t be organic either -go pilfer through some random user’s library on Last.fm or Goodreads or perform a hashtag search on Twitter to find a cool new person to follow. Organic means “derived from living matter” and when it comes to the process of search and discover, your adventure comes from actual living versus existing or passively participating!

So which is better? Which is worse? Organic or conventional? I think that both have their merits, but perhaps we should all pay attention to how much of the newly conventional suggestive “selling” we are buying into and make a point of getting our daily dose of organic adventure -no matter where it takes us.