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Social Media Surveillance

Decent Essays

Jacob Silverman in his book “Terms of Service” has made numerous claims related to social media, the organizations that operate them, the latest news that one sees today. In the introduction chapter of his book he makes a claim that "communication has become synonymous with surveillance"(Silverman, vii). He tries to convince the audience by providing the list of some of the devices that are commonly seen around like camera, eyeglasses, phones, shoes etc. There have sensors which provide the feedback to social media company and they save that data. The users of these devices are mutually engaging in these types of surveillance. He claims that in this day and culture there are three type of surveillance going on, surveillance by governments, …show more content…

On Facebook emoticons and status update are used to digitize emotions, which they can sell it to the advertisers. Silverman suggests that sometimes these words can be used wrongly by the algorithms. He says that if he tweets LeBron James’s slam dunk was “sick”, which means awesome, but the algorithm will read it wrongly. As he says at the end of the chapter "Given the currencies of digital life—data, attention, ad impressions, likes—bots may prove the more reliable moneymakers"(Silverman, …show more content…

The author Andrew Leonard has said "We've offered up every detail of our lives to advertiser manipulation, voluntarily embraced a panopticonic existence of constant surveillance, and supinely allowed a bunch of techno-utopian Silicon Valley companies to guide and shape our behavior."(Leonard). In this review the author agrees with Silverman about being under constant surveillance, he also agrees with Silverman that we should constantly be alert about the data that we put on social media as in this statement "Silverman is correct: It is critical that we monitor and understand the consequences of "the data-ization of the digital self." "(Leonard). Andrew does not agree with Silverman on the point "Photos become less about memorializing a moment than communicating the reality of that moment to others,"(Silverman, 55). Andres says that “Before social media, you could argue that the modern world specialized in tearing us apart, in atomizing the relationships that once bound societies together. Now we've got something that helps lace the grand tapestry back together. This is not a bad thing” (Leonard). In a way Andrew finds something good in Social

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