I love watching the Olympics. Team USA's gold medal winning performance in men's ice hockey in 1980 inspired me to start playing ice hockey when I was a kid. In the 1980's, there was a foosball like arcade game that had Team USA v. USSR (CCCP) face off in a mini hockey rink that I enjoyed playing.
While recently reading an ESPN.com article about the latest U.S. v. Russia men's ice hockey game today I decided to review the comments section of the article. I noticed that ESPN.com has joined other websites in using Facebook's comment platform. This is unfortunate since Facebook's commenting platform is a threat to personal privacy, the freedom of speech, and it assists data brokers.
Approximately a year ago, Facebook partnered with data brokers Axciom, Epsilon, Datalogix and Blue Kai to provide them a treasure trove of personal information about its users. This partnership has greatly deteriorated the personal privacy of Facebook users and their "Facebook Friends". Therefore, any comment one makes about Team USA beating Russia in the Olympics may then be placed in one's data broker file. This information may then be utilized to discriminate against those who make a public comment using Facebook's platform.
Americans have utilized public forums to anonymously comment on issues of the day since at least the time of the Federalist Papers in 1788. Facebook's comment platform destroys anonymity and deters open public discourse. Those who utilize Facebook's comment platform may not realize that every comment they make is tied to them forever.
The bottom line is that social media users may need to become better educated regarding how commercial entities are tracking them online and how data brokers may be a greater threat to our personal privacy, safety, and security than the NSA, a foreign government, or hackers.
Copyright 2014 by the Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC All rights reserved.
