Twitter is seen these days as a form of blogging, micro – blogging in fact, but as Markus and Nurius (1986) point out ‘do we use blogging to find a way of expressing our possible selves?’ (cited James et al 2011 p228). This is an interesting concept to explore, do we use blogging to explore ourselves, deceive others, or find out if we are capable of becoming someone else? Twitter is ‘also a way of staying connected especially with the use of applications and mobile technology’ (Krishnamurthy, Gill and Arlitt 2008)[2]. People use it instead of Facebook to swap comments, views or ideas about a particular subject, and due to the mobile apps, this is able to be done on the move.
I personally use Twitter as a way to express how I am feeling right now, generally about the latest football matches, but for many people, especially celebrities, they use it as a way to promote their latest programme, fragrance, clothing line etc., and a way to communicate with their fans, and making them feel special. However many celebrities have got into trouble with using Twitter, with the majority of these being footballers, commenting after a match that they were not happy with. These tweets are later removed, but they are still in the blogosphere, and had been re-tweeted by others. Cricketers are also involved in this with many management teams forbidding players to use Twitter once a team sheet has been released or for example; the England football team were banned from tweeting while they were in the world cup.
Most recently the television Rav Wilding split up with his girlfriend Chantelle Houghton through Twitter, with her later claiming that she knew nothing about it. Twitter makes things that are a very private matter, a very public one, and is this fair to people’s rights and feelings?
In 2009 the Working Group report recognised that online social networkers needed to understand their rights and responsibilities about the use of sensitive data and images e.g. on Twitter. Although the U.K. is a country with freedom of speech, online social media repeatedly gets people into trouble. If one person tweets something, and then it gets re-tweeted by someone else who is in a country that does not have freedom of speech, then who is the person that gets into trouble? The person who first stated it, or the re-tweeter? There are no laws yet to state who is responsible. However “the U.K. did not acknowledge express guarantees of freedom of speech and privacy until the enactment of the Human Rights Act of 1998” (Lipton 2010, p562)[3].
Jamar (2010)[4] agrees with Lipton (2010) and states that there is a need to redefine the Copyright Act in order to incorporate social media. I personally agree with this, as it is currently unclear as to who is responsible for what on social media websites such as Twitter and Facebook. As looked at in a previous blog, the use of The Body Shop and their ethics and promotion of ethics. I had previously looked at their privacy policy to view their feelings on data mining and dataveillance, and everything seemed to comply with the Data Protection Act 1998.
I think that computers storing the cookies from what people have searched and what pages they have visited should be made illegal (or have incredibly heavy regulation). You are able to delete cookies, but many people do not know how to do this, and therefore this puts them at a disadvantage. People should be educated in the basic ways of data privacy and how to keep any sensitive information private. In the last few days the PlayStation network has been hacked (with the network being down for many days) and many people’s sensitive data has been put at risk. I do not think this is fair as many people trust these networks, and do enter sensitive data such as their bank details, which could be accessed by hackers. Recently I received an email from Benefit Cosmetics stating that due to a database fault many customers names and email addresses had been lost, however there was nothing that they or I could do about it. This was useful of them to email all customers just so that they are aware of the matter, but at the same time, it was not the most reassuring email to receive on a Saturday morning.
With no real laws having been set out and social media developing so fast, it is very difficult to see any laws being passed in the near future, because as soon as anything is passed, it will immediately be out of date because there will be something new that has not been thought of, and will not have been taken into account. However there must be some moderating so that people can continue to use the internet in confidence, and not feel that they are being spied on by robots.
[1] James, C. et al., 2011. Young people, Ethics and the new digital media. Contemporary Readings in Law and Social Justice. 2 (2) 215 – 284.
[2] Humphreys, L., Krishnamurthy, B., and Gill, P., 2008. How Much Is Too Much? Privacy Issues on Twitter. International Communication Association; 2010 Annual Meeting, p1, 0p.
[3] Lipton, J., 2010. Digital Multi – Media and the limits of Privacy Laws. Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law. 42 (3) 551 – 571.
[4] Jamar, S., 2010. Crafting copyright law to encourage and protect user generated content in the Internet Social Networking Context. Widener Law Journal. 19 (3) 843 – 872.
