#anthonyshaw

Plate by Anthony Shaw via American Decorative Arts

Medium: Earthenware, transfer-printed

Bequest of Mary Mandeville Johnston, from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Edward W. S. Johnston, 1914 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY

Law and the internet. These two concepts seem to constantly be at loggerheads. While the law has traditionally been (in theory) a black and white, right and wrong system, when applied to the internet we are constantly left with shades of grey. The technology of the last few decades has evolved so rapidly that laws all around the world have failed to keep up, and we are regularly seeing cases where the boundaries of new media are being tested, and new precedents are being set.

In March this year, an Australian judge ordered a New South Wales man to pay $105,000 in damages to his former teacher for defaming her in Twitter (Whitbourn, 2014). This was the first ruling of its kind relating to Twitter in Australia, and has set a powerful precedent for future social media defamation cases.  Many people today use social media to vent their frustrations, like people have used diaries or talking to their friends in the past. Now, however, comments that you make when you’re simply having a bad day have the potential to be seen by millions of people. They are also permanently stored in the great data collection of the internet. Should new laws be created to reflect this? If a person has a temporary lapse in judgement, and writes a stupid post on Facebook or Twitter complaining about their job, do they deserve to be fired? Well, that’s what happened to Joe Lobato from Denver, U.S.A (9news, 2013). Of course you can say that people should realise how public their posts are going to be, and be more careful about what they are putting on social media. Everyone has a point where they get annoyed and make a bad decision, however, and whether a lapse in judgement should be enough to get you fired, or sued, is an important question that the current laws are finding it hard to answer.

Another big question is how this tumultuous relationship bwtween law and new media will affect teenagers. In January of this year, a 17 year-old girl in Canada was convicted of distributing child pornography when she sent explicit texts of another underage girl to her friends (Meissener, 2014). This practice is, of course, also illegal in Australia. A study conducted this year found that over a quarter of Australian 16-18 year olds had sent a sexually explicit photo (ABC, 2014), so should all of these teenagers be charged? Even if it was a photo of themselves? The laws around child pornography have every right to be tough, but we all know teenagers don’t make the best decisions. And with ‘sexting’ seemingly becoming an almost normal part of modern day courtship for the younger generation, these laws are something that need to be looked in to.

The law and new media obviously do not work perfectly together. With the long and arduous task of changing laws, and the rapidly changing technologies supporting new media, they probably never will. However, unless we want teenagers having life-altering criminal charges hanging over their heads, this is something that has to be addressed.

  References:

Meissener, Dirk. 2014. “Sexting B.C. teen found guilty of child pornography.” Accessed May 18, 2014. http://bc.ctvnews.ca/sexting-b-c-teen-found-guilty-of-child-pornography-1.1633678

Whitbourn, Michaela. 2014. “The tweet that cost $105,000.” Accessed May 18, 2014. http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/the-tweet-that-cost-105000-20140305-341kl.html

9news staff. 2014. “Denver man fired for complaining on Facebook.” Accessed May 18, 2014. http://www.9news.com/story/news/local/9news-evenings/2014/02/25/1859218/

We’ve been hearing a lot about the collection of data lately, especially by governments. The NSA scandal that was exposed by Edward Snowden dominated the media, especially new media, when it was uncovered last year. People were shocked to hear their elected officials were secretly gathering data on them, and it slowly spread across the globe as more and more countries were implicated by the leaked documents. It was interesting to me, however, that this garnered so much media attention. Citizens from all over the globe have been knowingly sharing details of their lives with corporations for years. Facebook, Google, and Twitter know more about me than most of my Facebook ‘friends’, and even some of my real friends.  I thought it was strange that people suddenly felt violated when they found out politicians had been taking a look at the data for themselves. It seems contradictory that the majority of the population is ok with people making money off our personal data, but when the government is scanning it for potential security threats without telling us, suddenly it is an unforgiveable crime.

The rise of this unprecedented age of data collection and storage has happened so quickly it seems a lot of people fail to understand the magnitude of what is going on. As was shown in one of the videos in the week 9 lecture (The Economist, 2012), in 2011 the estimated amount of data created was 1.8 zettabytes. That number so big it is impossible to comprehend

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Image sourced from: http://3bh7z63et5za3zf2gq2i3d83tlv.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/se-graph1.jpg

Official figures show about 67% of all internet searches in 2013 used Google (Lee, 2013), and they keep all of that search data. At the moment, this data is mostly used for advertising purposes. With all of the different branches of Google that exist now, 95% of their revenue still came from advertising in 2012 (Peterson, 2013).

Image sourced from: http://googledontbeevil.com/letter/images/google-dont-be-evil.gif

Google’s unofficial motto is “Don’t be evil”, and it says it will never share your information with others (Google, 2014). However, that is only their policy as it stands right now, with no telling what will happen in the future. Google are such an integral part of the internet now that they could do almost anything, and people would still use their products. Ask yourself, what would it take for you to stop using every Google-made product? The bottom line is, ‘Big Data’ is like ‘Big Oil’ or ‘Big Pharmaceuticals”: they are a part of our lives, they have huge control over it, and there is not much we can do about it. If we want to use the internet, we are always going to need a way to navigate it. While Google is the best at that, most people will continue to use Google. So with all this in mind, is it really so horrible that the governments of the world are sneaking a peak into our data as well?

We are living in a world now where we just have to assume that everything we do on the internet is going to be seen by someone, and we have to be thinking about that every time we open our laptops or pick up our phones. Children that are born today in first world countries will never know what true privacy is, and that is the price we pay for the pleasure of not having to go to the library to finish our assignments.

References: 

The Economist. (2012, June 26). The dark side of big data [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raJOkguPrH4

Lee, J. (2013). Google's Search Market Share Shoots Back to 67%. Retrieved from http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2289560/Googles-Search-Market-Share-Shoots-Back-to-67

Peterson, T. (2013). Google Finally Crosses $50 Billion Annual Revenue Mark. Retrieved from http://www.adweek.com/news/technology/google-finally-crosses-50-billion-annual-revenue-mark-146710

The Web 2.0 age has ushered in a change in media, where the general public is no longer purely a canvas for the media to paint on to. Those who were formally just an audience can now create, edit and spread content across the globe in an instant, or ignore it completely. The relationship between content creators and their audience is no longer a one-way, top-down affair. It is not a simple case of the audience consuming content and forming an opinion on it. Audiences now have the power to show the content to others, share their opinion with the world, or even create a different version of the product that they think would be better, and show that to the world.

This has led to all sorts of new opportunities and threats for businesses. If you create something that people like and they share it with their friends, great! If they hate it, they’ll share it with even more people, and you can bet they will tell everyone exactly why they hated it.

Perhaps this is why Facebook doesn’t include a ‘dislike’ button as well as a ‘like’ button. Companies on social media don’t want people to know how many people dislike them, only how many people like them. Not to mention the monetary value. One of your ‘likes’ on Facebook is worth $174.17 (Smith, 2013) to that company. That’s a lot of value just for one mouse click. If you’re sharing one of their products, that’s worth even more. 84% of people trust recommendations from people they know more than any other form of advertising (Marketing Charts, 2013). If you’re sharing content, that is a recommendation in the digital world. Every time you show your mum the funny cat video you just watched, somebody benefits from it financially. As Jenkins and Green said, “Spreadability depends on increased collaboration across and even a blurring of the distinction between economic and noneconomic exchanges” (2011).

However, just because there is no dislike button does not mean that people can’t express their displeasure with your organisation. Recent history is littered with examples of social media campaigns gone wrong. Here are two examples of high profile companies getting huge backlash from their efforts on Facebook and twitter. Not only can these responses be viewed by anyone on the social media platforms, but both cases were also reported on by traditional media, adding to the negative press.

Web 2.0 isn’t just about a new age of ease of content creation and spreadability. While the audience feels more independent and powerful in relation to the media than ever, in reality we are still helping Big Business every time we hit a ‘like’ button. Yes, there are risks for the companies as well with two-way communication, but the benefits are far greater.

References:

Smith, Ned. 2013. "How Much Is a Facebook Friend Worth? $174.17". Accessed March 24, 2014. http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/4402-value-facebook-friend-marketing.html

Marketing Charts Staff. 2013. "Which Forms of Advertising Do Consumers Trust – and Act On – the Most?" Accessed March 24, 2014. http://www.marketingcharts.com/wp/television/which-forms-of-advertising-do-consumers-trust-and-act-on-the-most-36767/

Green, Joshua and Jenkins, Henry, 2011. "The handbook of media audiences", (pp.109 - 127). Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. 

Schneider, Kate. 2011. "Fail! Qantas red-faced after Twitter campaign backfires." Accessed March 24, 2014. http://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/fail-qantas-red-faced-after-twitter-campaign-backfires/story-e6frfq80-1226202445747