Answer to Question #219493 in Law for Connie

Question

What is the impact of social media on the constitutional right to Privacy (125 words) 5 marks

Answer 1

The most perplexing impact that social media has on the right to privacy is the strange way people seem to be ready and willing to share so much of their private lives. Some argue that people don’t understand how much information is actually collected but I beg to differ. For some strange reason people want the world to know who they are. People have a need to feel special, different and unique. Or they seek approval of those that think or believe as they do. So to achieve this they openly share their lives. In order to claim a right to privacy you must act as if you want privacy. This is what social media, corporations, law enforcement, the governments and others need to respect. People should not be forced or secretly tracked to surrender privacy. By forced I means they should not be forced to,pay a higher price for not using a store loyalty card. That should be illegal. They should not be secretly tracked by the data markets. There should be an explicit law that requires the EXPLICIT written permission of the citizen for his information to be openly traded. And since the information is yours the citizen should be compensated a share of the selling price when his or her profile is sold. But again the citizen must conduct themselves as a person who whishes to remain private. We cannot fault Facebook if a person decides to share their lives online. What we should do is require social media companies to be more open about what they collect. More restrictive in what they sell and share. The willingness of people to share on social media does undermine the right to privacy (If there is such a thing. Big legal question there). In the future the right to privacy will be secured individually. Each person will have to act and make the effort to remain private In their personal space with assistance of new laws to empower them. So except for showing up on any one of a trillion cameras they will remain unknown to anyone they do not wish to be known to.