Information about us often gets placed in the wrong hands and often its used in research for companies and academic purposes. This predicament is an issue that researchers face from time to time. Earlier this summer AOL researchers released three months worth of users query logs to a publicly accessible Web site (Hafner, 2006).
Access to these logs without permission should not be permitted because of people’s privacy rights. What little privacy that we have as citizens should be protected especially when the government has complete access of our every moves from phone conversations, text messages and Internet use. “Although these logs of 650,000 AOL users were not personally identified in the data, the logs contained enough information to discern an individual’s identity in some cases” (Hafner, 2006). Its one thing to use data on people but what happens if this data gets placed in the wrong hands? Then people will have to be concerned with identity theft. Its bad enough that someone can drive by your home if your Internet connection is not secured and steal your information and people have to avoid scams on a day-to-day basis.
If I were to put the shoe on the other foot, then I would have to say that I understand why researchers would want to use the AOL logs to better understand how we surf the Web. In the “Researchers Yearn to Use AOL Logs, but They Hesitate”, their are valid points made about why information in these logs can be useful in academic research. I think that companies such as Google should look at academia as an opportunity for synergy, not be selfish with their research. By sharing, Academia profits in their research and Google gets more hits on the Web.
These AOL logs according to a one professor an invasion, ”the AOL data is more like a real violation” (Hafner, 2006). Just what exactly constitutes a “real violation”. If people have not given their consent to use their information its wrong to do it anyway. The more access that is granted the less rights we have and people’s lives will begin to be exposed in tabloids. By making these AOL logs public where people con potentially be identified, we are giving the media and researchers complete access to our lives with no restrictions.
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Could Bert from sesame street really be a clone to Osama Bin Laden? Its a pretty scary the resemblance if you ask me. Bert was one of my favorite childhood characters from sesame street. The Children’s Television Network was not to happy about the negative depiction of Bert overseas. “We’re outraged that our characters would be used in this unfortunate and distasteful manner. The people responsible,e for this should be ashamed of themselves. We’ve are exploring all legal options to stop this abuse and any similar in the future” (Jenkins, 2006).
It is truly amazing to me thing things technology allows you to do. It is so easy to cut and paste, edit and merge pictures today to look like anything. Is this genius or grounds for self destruction, I am not really sure. When is it too much? In Dino Ignacio’s case I think he went over board with his collage of Bert and Bin Laden. “From his bedroom, Ignacio sparked an international controversy. His images crisscrossed the world…”(Jenkins, 2006). In a sense it distorted the childlike character, Bert that so many of us grew up with and loved. In the article Jenkins argues that this is in a sense cultural convergence. It ties together three key concepts, Media Convergence, Participatory Culture and Collective Intelligence (Jenkins, 2006).
Convergence is apart of our everyday lives. The collage about Bert is a prime example of this. “Think about the circuits that the Bert is Evil images traveled –from Sesame Street through Photoshop to the World Wide Web, from Ignacio’s bedroom to a print shop in Bangladesh, from the posters held by anti-American protestors that are captured by CNN and into the living rooms of people around the world” (Jenkins, 2006). The whole process is so scary and we wonder why terrorist exist in the world today and why identity theft exists.
Media convergence is just one of many ways that people interact and communicate with one another. I think more times than not the media converges our lives with the negatives of today instead of trying to find more positives for people to interact and communicate about.
Interesting Article: http://www.popmatters.com/pm/books/reviews/7051/convergence-culture-by-henry-jenkins/
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