Social Question

josie's avatar

Are people being naive about so freely sharing personal data?

Asked by josie (30934points) February 4th, 2019

These days, people are giving up volumes of personal data to Big Data collectors in exchange for free email,free social media, and free varmint hunting videos.

As one author has said, it is sort of like Native Americans selling Manhattan for beads. They thought it was a good deal, since as hunter gatherers they believed nobody owned it anyway. They had no idea what they were dealing with.

I think people believe that their personal data is metaphysically only theirs and nobody else’s.

But I have a suspicion someday data collection will be so important to the data harvesters, that it will be practically, if not legally, impossible to be off the network. If your data is not out there, you won’t be able to get a job, get medical insurance, etc.

Sort of like if you don’t have good credit you can’t get a car loan or take out a mortgage.

Shouldn’t people be a little more cautious? At least make Big Data pay you for your data rather than give it away for nothing.

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3 Answers

janbb's avatar

I don’t know that people are being naive at this point. I guess most think the trade-off is worth it.

Inspired_2write's avatar

Long term pain for short term fame.
In the long term what information that was shared today in the long term will be regretted later.
I see so many people posting images and details about their children online that its no wonder they are scouted by perverts online?
My niece routinely shares on social media images and details of “every little thing that her kids are doing”? She does not realize or is thinking that its a safe place to supply some viewer with all the details of where, when and times they are out etc
Because of her mistaken “need” to “Be liked” she has effectively placed her kids lives in jeopardy! False security, I think its classed as?

Mimishu1995's avatar

Not really. The way I see it on FB, it’s because they are not totally naive that they are oversharing.

More precisely, they think they are not naive, so there’s no way they can be fool, the belief which ends up getting them fooled. The people who overshare on FB that I know can detect basic scams like how-to-get-rich-fast schemes. And some of them know the different between “public” and “friend” security settings. But their knowledge ends there, because they think that’s all they have to do to keep their privacy safe. So beyond that point, they can share anything they want. Little do they know, there’s countless more ways for scammers to get their private information. Fake quizzes, weak passwords, fake messages from friends… they all believe them without question. FB accounts get stolen all the time because of that.

So yeah, as @Inspired_2write said, false security.

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