LIS 160 Portfolio 5: Your Social Media Data

It is no secret that tech companies collect their users’ data. Although this has good effects such as advertisements and recommendations catered to one’s taste, there are also dangerous implications to it. Using the same information that companies use in order to tailor recommendations and advertisements for people, you can also determine one’s hobbies, likes and dislikes. Then, if the site you’re using also tracks the time and place wherein you would access certain content, they would also then have the knowledge of not only your location, but the times you are active at. If they felt like it, it would be extremely easy for these companies to expose personal information such as home address and such online. As such, since these companies have access to these kinds of sensitive information, if they decide to use it for more nefarious purposes, the damage they can do would be devastating.

information from facebook.com/dyi