Highbrow Magazine - privacy laws https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/privacy-laws en 10 Years Later: Where is Facebook Headed Next? https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/3419-years-later-where-facebook-headed-next <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 02/10/2014 - 09:52</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/3facebook.jpg?itok=QJ2iRSDZ"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/3facebook.jpg?itok=QJ2iRSDZ" width="480" height="246" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p>On February 4<sup>th</sup> Silicon Valley popped corks to celebrate Facebook’s 10<sup>th</sup> birthday. What began as a relatively exclusive event for the East Coast elite, very soon hit a central nerve and changed the way 1.23 billion people worldwide communicate, interact, engage, catch up, and bristle. Let’s think about those two numbers for a moment: A company that didn’t even exist 10 years ago, has as many users as India has denizens.</p> <p> </p> <p>They post, share, poke, follow, comment, update, edit, and are doomed to like everything, even the things they don’t. Oh no! Your dog died? Up goes the little blue thumb. The sum of all these activities is an entirely new texture of news and entertainment that has little in common with a newspaper column or TV program. It’s a live-feed of the here and now and everywhere at once, a collective stream of consciousness, and we’re the reporters, equipped with an immense distributive power and “the global reach formerly reserved for kings, presidents, and movie stars</p> <p> </p> <p>Wherever our real bodies may be, our virtual personae are being bombarded with information and missives.” Our <em>Like</em>-Universe (no pun intended) is “always-on, constantly pinging us with the latest news … all pushing their way to our smart phones … Every one and everything intrudes with the urgency of a switchboard-era telephone operator breaking into a phone call with an emergency message from a relative, or a 1960s news anchor interrupting a television program with a special report about an assassination”, as the media theorist Douglas Rushkoff stated so fittingly in his most recent book <em>Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now.</em></p> <p> </p> <p>How did Facebook become and sustain itself as this remarkable reloading point for digital material, despite all the controversy about its user conditions that the quoted $135 billion company likes to change every so often for its own benefit, and the never-ending rumors about its nearing decline?</p> <p> </p> <p>The most recent and amusing example of these speculations was released by scientists from Princeton University who, based on Google trends, predicted that by 2017 Facebook will loose 80 percent of its users. They compared the network to a disease that spreads epidemically in the beginning but gets eradicated eventually by people becoming immune to it. Facebook’s smashing response to this patchy study beats Princeton at its own game suggesting that the Ivy League university will have no students by 2021, and our planet no air left by the year 2060.</p> <p> </p> <p>Since the beginning of its exponential growth, both Facebook’s financial and media status have been the subject of extensive speculation. Post IPO it mainly evolved around questions like: Will the company be able to remain in force in the mobile market? Will it keep growing at the same spectacular pace? What precisely is Facebook’s business model? Though Facebook is one of the main instigators of the technological shift we’re currently experiencing, it has to stay far ahead of the curve if it wants to keep its impatient, distracted, and ever-demanding users entertained and to remain the phenomenal example of Metcalfe’s law.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/4facebook.jpg" style="height:351px; width:625px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>“Facebook’s challenge is to keep growing”, write Brad Stone and Sarah Frier in Bloomberg <em>Businessweek</em>. “With almost half the world’s Internet-connected population using the service, the company is facing the immutable law of large numbers and simply can’t keep adding users at its previously torrid rate. At the same time, Facebook must defend its highly profitable business against several threatening trends. Internet users — particularly young ones — crave different kinds of online experiences and new ways of connecting with one another.”</p> <p> </p> <p>And then there are of course those other little annoyances that the social service has to deal with on a regular basis, namely the halfhearted protests evolving around privacy and advertisement. But no matter how much the users complain,  most of them stick around. It seems as though Facebook still holds the key to what AOL desperately tried to achieve in the ‘90’s: to turn the open and adventurous World Wide Web into a closed system, a cocoon that is seducing us with its conveniences and comforts. Facebook doesn’t function because it provides us with more possibilities of communication, but because it reduces and manipulates them by observing our personal and public online behavior and modifying its algorithm accordingly.</p> <p> </p> <p>John Naughton, the author of <em>From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg: What You Really Need to Know About the Internet</em>, compares this business model to that of the US National Security Agency: “The difference is that while it’s impossible to know whether the NSA’s surveillance is a cost-effective way of achieving its mission, there’s no doubt that Facebook’s monitoring of its users is paying off, big time – as evidenced by its quarterly results, released last week. The company had revenues of $2.59bn for the three months ending 31 December – up 63 percent from the same time last year; and for 2013 as a whole it had revenues of $7.87bn, up 55 percent year-on-year. Its profit last year was $1.5bn.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Through personalized advertisement and the integration of other online services (I can buy from Amazon or Ebay without even visiting their website), Facebook becomes the overall service provider. There’s no need to leave the cocoon to browse other websites. </p> <p> </p> <p>What will the next 10 years bring? In view of the fact that the Internet is constantly in motion, that is impossible to tell, though Zuckerberg gives us a little glimpse of where his company is headed and what precautions it is taking to appease the peeved user: “Paper.” Developed by Facebook Creative Labs, a new company initiative charged with moving the company toward becoming a diversified app power, this standalone app is the social network’s new mobile newsreader that looks nothing like Facebook. Facebook isn’t waiting for its competitors to program alternatives. With the new app it has created its own alternative. Facebook isn’t dying anytime soon. In case it does, it will make sure to transplant itself and live on in another body. But for right now, let’s watch it grow up. </p> <p><strong>Author Bio:</strong></p> <p><em>Karolina Swasey is a contributing writer at</em> Highbrow Magazine.</p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/facebook" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Facebook</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/facebook-anniversary" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">facebook anniversary</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/social-media" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">social media</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/twitter" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Twitter</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/facebook-users" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">facebook users</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/internet-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">the internet</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/privacy-laws" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">privacy laws</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/privacy-online" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">privacy online</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/mark-zuckerberg" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">mark zuckerberg</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Karolina R. Swasey </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Mon, 10 Feb 2014 14:52:33 +0000 tara 4252 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/3419-years-later-where-facebook-headed-next#comments Supreme Court Ruling Further Violates Individual Privacy https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/2510-supreme-court-ruling-further-violates-individual-privacy <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 06/10/2013 - 10:01</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/2mediumsupremecourt%20%28phil%20roeder%20flickr%29.jpg?itok=x5qHNEAF"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/2mediumsupremecourt%20%28phil%20roeder%20flickr%29.jpg?itok=x5qHNEAF" width="480" height="321" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> From <a href="http://newamericamedia.org/2013/06/supreme-court-ruling-could-open-door-to-privacy-violations.php">New America Media</a> and <a href="http://www.afro.com/sections/opinion/story.htm?storyid=78660">The Afro</a>:</p> <p>  </p> <p> Preeminent Harvard Law Professor Charles Ogletree said the Supreme Court’s ruling Monday legitimizing Maryland law enforcement’s use of an overreaching procedure of collecting genetic data in serious crimes will likely lead the way to more troubling privacy violations of the 4th Amendment's protection against “unreasonable search and seizure.”</p> <p>  </p> <p> ‘This opens up a Pandora’s Box on how far law enforcement can go with technology as evidence tools going forward,” Ogletree said, adding “This hotly contested [criminal justice] issue won’t be resolved with this case or even the next one; it will take some time to figure out.”</p> <p>  </p> <p> Ogletree notes a trend in the Supreme Court’s split ruling (5-4) that DNA sampling is minimally intrusive and does not violate the 4th amendment. He suspects there will be similar close decisions as court watchers wait for the justices’ ruling in two critical upcoming civil rights cases before their term ends -- one on voting rights, the other on affirmative action in higher education.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Monday’s SCOTUS decision overturned an earlier ruling by the Maryland Court of Appeals. The Maryland challenge came from Alonzo King, of Wicomico County, whose DNA sample was linked to a 2003 unsolved rape after he was arrested in 2009 on an unrelated assault charge. He was later convicted of the rape.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Justice Anthony Kennedy ruled the DNA sampling was a simple police booking procedure to “identify” suspects, while conservative Justice Antonin Scalia -- usually not one that Ogletree agrees with -- said it is an overreaching power tool for police and prosecutors which can be used whether you are “arrested rightly or wrongly, and for whatever reason.”</p> <p>  </p> <p> “It is so clear that [Scalia] in making his dissent is lamenting the role of technology in what the founders meant with the [4th] Amendment,” Ogletree said.</p> <p>  </p> <p> He pointed out that Justice Stephen Breyer, who sided with the conservative wing, has a history of ruling in favor of law enforcement against defendants in criminal cases and Scalia is a strict adherent of what he views as the original words and intent of the Founding Fathers.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Maryland’s test case on the collection of DNA samples without a warrant, Ogletree warns, is a watershed ruling which is not just about locking up criminals or “fishing expeditions” for suspects from the cold case database, but it also sets the stage for further erosion of all citizens’ rights to privacy.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Even former Prince George’s County State’s Attorney Glenn Ivey, who pushed for DNA sampling to get “cold case hits” from the national database, agreed that the ruling tests new limits and has “widespread implications for everyone.” In a television interview earlier this week, he added that is why “state legislatures need to set limits on how [the DNA sampling] is used.”</p> <p>  </p> <p> When you shut your door and close your curtains do you have “a reasonable expectation of privacy,” believing that your intimate actions will remain private?</p> <p>  </p> <p> When you are driving down the street “in plain view” but with the windows rolled up, do you trust that your heart-to-heart confession to a close confidant will not end up as criminal evidence someday? How far will law enforcement be allowed to intrude on your privacy as more sophisticated 21st century surveillance and technological tools are invented to ease investigations?</p> <p> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/2mediuminvasionofprivacy_0.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 829px;" /></p> <p>  </p> <p> The well-known legal scholar was in Baltimore last week to be the keynote speaker at the Mentoring Male Teens dinner which raises funds to send the young “kings” on college tours. “I only wish there were more African Americans like [founder Cameron Miles] who would spend all their time and money doing the same to help troubled youth who find themselves often fatherless, homeless and without a vision for their lives,” Ogletree said.</p> <p>  </p> <p> The former deputy director of the D.C. Public Defender Service and trustee of the University of the District of Columbia, is also co-founder of a public charter school in Cambridge, Mass., the Benjamin Banneker Charter School for neighborhood children who have “troubling experiences” in the regular public school. He hired specialized teachers with expertise and empathy for working with the students on subjects modeled after Maryland-born Banneker’s accomplishment in science, technology, engineering and math – now known as STEM courses.</p> <p>  </p> <p> He is proud of those students who are now graduating from college, some with honors.</p> <p>  </p> <p> However, some minority students may not be so fortunate in the future. Ogletree is keeping a watchful eye on the Supreme Court which is expected to rule any day now – before their session ends in June --- on a landmark education case, Fisher v. Univ. of Texas, which “will likely end affirmative action as we know it.”</p> <p>  </p> <p> He suspects a split decision in the Fisher case will negate the 2003 SCOTUS affirmative action ruling involving the University of Michigan in which retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s ruling was based on the importance of diversity in the classroom, the military, and the workplace.</p> <p>  </p> <p> Predicting a similar split decision in the 1965 Voting Rights Act case, Ogletree said the court will likely strike down the central statute which requires federal oversight and permission for any changes in local voting practices in states which historically violated and suppressed minority voting rights.</p> <p>  </p> <p> “We’ll have to wait and see what happens going forward,” Ogletree said. “It’s only days away.”</p> <p>  </p> <p> <a href="http://www.afro.com/sections/opinion/story.htm?storyid=78660">The Afro</a></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/invasion-privacy" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">invasion of privacy</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/privacy-laws" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">privacy laws</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/supreme-court" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Supreme Court</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/supreme-court-decision" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">supreme court decision</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/individual-privacy" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">individual privacy</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/security" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">security</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/national-security" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">national security</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/dna-samples" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">dna samples</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Adrienne T. Washington</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Phil Roeder (Flickr, Creative Commons)</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Mon, 10 Jun 2013 14:01:55 +0000 tara 2989 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/2510-supreme-court-ruling-further-violates-individual-privacy#comments