In my ‘New Media, New Asia’ class, we have been discussing how new media shapes events and practices in Asia and are about to write a 2500 word essay on a topic of our choice. (Never have I had to write an essay of this length. Even in all my English and Literature classes during high school, 1500 has always been the maximum word limit. Let’s see how I go with something nearly double the size)
Anyway…
I have chosen to discuss the government’s online censorships in China. The idea is that, even though the government is not always watching over people’s shoulders, it is the thought of it that that brings people to censoring themselves. Not knowing when or how much the government is following, people have habitually become more minded and guarded with what they post online (whether it be bad-mouthing the government or saying something against one of the country’s policies).

One example is from 2011 when a train derailed in the Chinese city of Wenzhou, causing harm to many people and the death of others, witnesses took photos and videos to share online through various forms of social media. When the sharing got out of hand, the government began censoring all the images and posts in order to keep their reputation of being a “perfect” power.
People expressed their anger about this through, what else, but social media. They demanded to have unfettered news and for the Communist party to stop with their propaganda.

This is only one example of how new media shapes different events. I am still in the researching stage of this essay so will return with more when I can. 🙂

Everybody’s notions of privacy has changed as the years go by, as they grow older and most importantly, as society changes. Privacy does not have the same meaning now as it did in let’s say, 2005. The main thing that comes to mind for me is how people used Facebook when it first became a “thing”.

I remember constantly talking to my friends through “wall-posts”; posting messages to them on their public wall where everyone can see and sometimes even sending them details on an upcoming event (“meet you tomorrow at 10:00am, Flinders Street”) for all their friends, my friends and whoever else to know. It’s ridiculous to think about that now because all communication is “private” nowadays, with people keeping in contact through private chats, texts and phone calls. You choose who you want your information to go to.

Is privacy a right or a responsibility?
I believe that privacy is both a right and a responsibility.
For example, one’s privacy rights can disappear once they have done something illegal and investigations are necessary. Yet it is also a responsibility because it is up to you what kind of information you give out.
(You cannot passively assume that everybody will respect your data)

Onto the topic of not assuming everybody will respect your data, data brokerage is something I learnt about the other day in my ‘New Media, New Asia’ class. I know it’s been happening but had never heard the term before. Data brokerage, “in the name of commerce” is the act of websites collecting our personal information in order to sell them to different companies (often without our knowledge).
This information is used by companies to, mainly, try and sell us things.

I’ve thought about this many times in my life when I’m on YouTube or Facebook or even Urban Outfitters, and I see an advertisement for something that I may have searched a couple of times in the past days. The first question to pop into my mind is: “how did they know”. It’s like Big Brother…

And now back to what I’ve mentioned earlier about privacy, it is because people have become habituated to certain websites and aren’t as careful with their information anymore. You think that what you do on a certain website stays on that certain website and suddenly disappears the second you cross the window, but it doesn’t.

Everybody has a digital footprint.

Now to conclude my longest blog post up to date, here is an article about something I saw on the news the other day, where people have found a way to download their entire Google history. Is that scary for you? Interesting? Funny? Curious? Nervous? Well it depends on what you’ve been Googling…

http://tech.firstpost.com/news-analysis/you-can-now-download-your-entire-search-history-from-google-264415.html