The Privacy Paradox

In the modern internet landscape, it can be very difficult to understand how to keep your information private.  Sites like Facebook have privacy settings, but frequent site/app updates often change a user’s privacy settings without notification and can result in our private information being much more public than we intended.  Tech companies make money off our online behavior by taking our data, translating it into predictions about us, and selling it to advertisers and other buyers.  Thus, it is in a company’s self-interest to make their privacy settings as esoteric and difficult to use as possible, ensuring the maximum amount of open, usable personal data is available. (All Things Considered, 2017)

Research has been conducted on Americans regarding their professed concerns concerning internet privacy.  As Hargittai and Marwick summarize in their article “’What Can I Really Do?’ Explaining the Privacy Paradox with Online Apathy,” a majority of Americans (as high as 57%) are “Privacy Pragmatists” who are concerned about privacy, but approach each situation from a risk/benefit perspective, 25% are “Privacy Fundamentalists” who are highly concerned about privacy, and 18% were “Unconcerned” regarding privacy and would willingly disclose personal details for minor gains. However, when tested in an experimental setting, even the participants most highly concerned about privacy, willingly disclosed personal information. (Hargittai & Marwick, 2016)  This contrasting ideology and behavior is known as the Privacy Paradox.

Sizzle. n.d.

Considering that as many as 82% of Americans are concerned about online privacy, it’s jarring to see so many people unable to correctly identify privacy threats and act accordingly.  This disconnect is likely due to the lack of education/knowledge on how to successfully navigate the online world, gaining access to all the benefits, while still protecting your privacy.  One resource I found particularly useful was WNYC’s Note to Self podcast series “The Privacy Paradox”.  They put on a 5 part podcast (found here) that walked through how our data is being gathered, synthesized, and used by companies and provided key steps on how to step up your efforts in protecting your own privacy and online identity.  On their website, you can find beginner, intermediate, and advanced steps one can take to safeguard your privacy from changing privacy settings on your browser/social media accounts to strengthening passwords to using two factor authentication for key accounts.

Christoph Meinersmann n.d.

Even with Americans’ professed concern over privacy, and many of us having the tools available or the resources to find the tools to safeguard our privacy, why is it that so many people don’t follow through with their convictions?  Is it apathy and/or cynicism as Hargittai and Marwick suggest, or is there some other underlying reason?  Are companies’ privacy settings too esoteric? Should there be regulations regarding what data companies can collect?  Is opting-out a realistic option in today’s world?

References:

Hargittai, Eszter and Alice Marwick. “’What Can I Really Do?’ Explaining the Privacy Paradox with Online Apathy.” International Journal of Communication, vol. 10, 2016.

The Privacy Paradox. Note to Self. WNYC. https://project.wnyc.org/privacy-paradox/. Feb 2017. Accessed 20 Mar 2017.

NPR Staff. “Online Trackers Follow Our Digital Shadow by ‘Fingerprinting’ Browsers, Devices.” NPR. http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/09/26/495502526/online-trackers-follow-our-digital-shadow-by-fingerprinting-browsers-devices. 26 Sep 2016. Accessed 20 Mar 2017.

Zomorodi, Manoush, et al. “Privacy Paradox: What You Can Do About Your Data Right Now.” NPR. http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2017/01/30/512434746/privacy-paradox-what-you-can-do-about-your-data-right-now. 30 Jan 2017. Accessed 20 Mar 2017.

Online Abuse in the Age of Gamergate

Online abuse and cyberbullying are issues that have increasing relevance in the modern classroom as technology proliferates and the line between our online selves and our in person personas continues to blur.  

Two recent newsworthy controversies that highlight power of cyberbullying include the Gamergate and the Sad Puppy/Rabid Puppy movements.  Without going into too much detail, the Gamergate controversy began when Eron Gjoni, a video game developer, posted a defamatory article about his ex-girlfriend, Zoe Quinn, after she ended their brief relationship.  In this article, he alleged many things, including that she traded sexual favors for exposure and promotion in the video game industry.  Originally posted in gamer-related internet forums, his posts were quickly removed by moderators, forcing him to post his allegations in the less closely monitored/regulated imageboard: 4chan.  From there, online users, mostly male, began an organized, targeted campaign of online abuse toward Quinn and women in general within the video game community. (Salter, 2017)

John Hain, n.d.

Similarly, the Sad/Rabid Puppy movement is an organized group of SciFi/Fantasy novel enthusiasts who used underhanded tactics to rig the nomination process of Hugo Awards to shut out works of literature from diverse authors or works that promote a social justice message in favor of traditional works with a more white/male sensibility.  The Sad Puppies as a group generally approached discourse with the community with a relatively reasoned and measured demeanor where the Rabid Puppies, as led by Vox Day, generally resorted to cyberbullying and other forms of online abuse. (Robinson, 2015)

In his article on Gamergate, Salter suggests that both the online users and the technological platforms themselves contribute to promulgation of online abuse.  (Salter, 2017)  I tend to agree, as the anonymity possible online allows individuals to behave in ways they otherwise wouldn’t.  In addition, a single individual has the ability to create multiple identities (known as sockpuppets) as a way to inflate the apparent chorus of agreement to any inflammatory comments he or she makes.  Many online message boards have disabled the ability to post anonymously, which helps in reducing online abuse and inflammatory posts, but does nothing to prevent individuals from making fake identities.

I also notice how many of today’s online harassment controversies revolve around identity and diversity.  Both Gamergate and the Sad/Rabid Puppy movements are comprised of primarily white men upset over and protesting the inclusion of non-traditional individuals into their community.  With Gamergate, the backlash was over women entering into a male dominated hobby while the Sad/Rabid Puppy movement focused on the celebration of diverse authors and novels promoting social justice and diversity over traditional works by white male authors telling traditional straightforward hero narratives.

 maxlkt, n.d.

With so much talk and coverage of these high profile cyberbullying cases, it can be easy to think it is a ubiquitous problem and inevitable that it will affect all students, but it is important to realize that cyberbullying, while problematic and significant, is not a universal experience. (Sabella, et al., 2013)

Perhaps the best way to address cyberbullying is the same way an educator would address traditional bullying in the classroom: By addressing the root cause of the conflict itself.  Questions to consider:  Are the motivations for cyberbullying similar or different than the motivations for traditional, in person bullying?  As many newsworthy cyberbullying incidents revolve around white male reactions to diversity, is increasing diversity to broaden individual's exposure the answer?

References:

Sabella, Russell, et al. “Review: Cyberbullying Myths and Realities”, Computers in Human Behavior, 2013, ResearchGate. Web. 27 Feb. 2017.

Salter, Michael. “From Geek Masculinity to Gamergate: The Technological Rationality of Online Abuse.” Crime, media, culture, 2017, pp. 1-18 SAGE Journals. Web. 27 Feb. 2017.

Robinson, Tasha. “How the Sad Puppies Won – By Losing”, NPR Books, 2015, http://www.npr.org/2015/08/26/434644645/how-the-sad-puppies-won-by-losing. Retrieved 27 Feb. 2017.

Benefits and Challenges to Utilizing Open Educational Resources

Current trends in education indicate a move toward increased use of Open Educational Resources (OER’s) in academic instruction and academic libraries.  There have been a number of academic articles promoting the benefits and identifying the challenges of using and curating an expansive repository of OER’s.

Some of the benefits to widely available OER’s include:

1. Eliminating a class textbook through extensive use of OER’s, thereby reducing educational costs to the student (Hilton, 2010)
2. Allowing for increased diversity in perspectives of instructional viewpoints (Richter, 2012)
3. Access to high quality educational tools for developing nations (Richter, 2012)
4. Broad dissemination of academic literature (Mitchell, 2014)
5. Access to free and low cost educational resources for cash-strapped educational budgets (Mitchell, 2014)

Pexels; n.d.; https://pixabay.com/en/books-students-library-university-1281581/

However, there are challenges associated with implementing high-quality OER availability:

1. Content creators need to be mindful of licensing features and limitations such as the “Creative Commons” license (Hilton, 2010)
2. The tools used to create and edit OER’s need to be commonly available with access to an open source file (Hilton, 2010)
3. End users can have difficulty finding and adapting OER’s to individual needs/applications (Richter, 2012)
4. Purely providing resources/OER’s to educators without themselves participating in the adaptation process may not increase overall quality of education (Richter, 2012)
5. Lack of cultural diversity as the majority of OER’s are developed by Western cultures and ruling elites (Richter, 2012)
6. Outside established journal/publisher review procedures (Mitchell, 2014)

Most of the challenges facing OER’s can be addressed through wider use, development, and implementation of OER’s by larger groups of more diverse educators.  However, one of the challenges that I find particularly interesting is the sourcing of these OER’s.  While many OER’s can be found in curated repositories like the UNESCO OER Wiki, I wonder what sort of vetting and/or oversight the majority of these OER’s undergo.  While something like a textbook can go through extensive peer review, vetting, and criticism when preparing for publication, overall oversight of OER’s could be less rigorous overall.  Would the overall quality of educational resources be diminished if common practices moved away from the publishing model to a more open resource model?  Is crowd sourcing and iterative improvement, similar to the process Wikipedia implements, enough of a check on overall OER quality?

Altmann; n.d.; https://pixabay.com/en/system-network-news-connection-1527676/

I also wonder if moving to an open resource model disincentivizes quality content creation.  If an academic expert is not going to profit monetarily from the publication of a textbook or increase his or her reputation through publication in an academic journal, is there a clear motivating factor other than altruism?  If OER usage supplants traditional publication, will the overall quality of academic resources diminish?

References:

Hilton, III, John, et al. "The Four 'R's Of Openness And ALMS Analysis: Frameworks For Open Educational Resources." Open Learning 25.1 (2010): 37-44. Academic Search Premier. Web. 1 Feb. 2017

Mitchell, Carmen, and Melanie Chu. "Open Education Resources: The New Paradigm in Academic Libraries." Journal of Library Innovation, vol. 5, no. 1, 2014., pp. 13-29 ProQuest Technology Collection, https://search-proquest-com.proxy.libraries.uc.edu/docview/1537996473?accountid=2909.

Richter, Thomas, and Maggie McPherson. "Open Educational Resources: Education for the World?" Distance Education, vol. 33, no. 2, 2012., pp. 201-219 Research Library, https://search-proquest-com.proxy.libraries.uc.edu/docview/1034609551?accountid=2909.