Page 18 - ADU Voice Volume 3 Issue 2
P. 18
18 voice · FALL 2023
SOCIAl
MEDIA
will never
be safe
WRITTEN BY MALAK FARAWI (1088017), RAGHD
OTOUM (1087147), MERIAM METRY (1088029),
& KARIN SHAKER (1090388)
othing vast enters the life of mor- To start with, all our accounts,
tals without a curse,” as written by the and the information linked to
N ancient Greek playwright Sophocles. them, are being sold to advertisers daily.
Social media, like everything else in the There is a reason that social media applica-
world, has both benefits and drawbacks, and tions, such as Instagram and Facebook, are
it’s easy to look at simply one side of the coin, free to download. A documentary called “The
whilst disregarding the other. However, tech- Social Dilemma” by Orlowski in 2020 allows
nology today is growing at an insane pace. us to see that we are not the customers in this
Although some might argue that using some transaction. Instead, advertisers are the true
consumer-focused privacy features can help customers, and our attention is essentially
us stay safe online, no such feature will ever the thing being sold. After these applications
lead to complete online safety. Many factors gather data, such as with what and whom we
halt social media safety, such as advertising interact on the internet, they are then able
goals, exploitation, and problems regarding to build data models that are a copy of us on
algorithms. the other side of the screen.
