Out to Lunch

After finally landing my first teaching job at the local high school where I will be teaching Information Technology and Social Studies, my fabulous new principal (Mrs. M) took me by surprise when she asked me to lunch one afternoon.  We drove out to the local diner and over a burger and fries we discussed the new job and how I was adjusting.  After awhile, the topic turned to the Internet and Mrs. M started to express concerns with her security and privacy as she was new to the online experience.  She inquired what, if anything, she should be looking out for in those regards.

I told her that she was right to feel concern about online security and privacy.  The Internet has exploded onto society and into our lives so quickly that laws dealing with privacy and security on the Internet have not kept up (and current laws do not apply or are too narrowly written to cover all).  There are also consequences that are not fully understood yet regarding certain operating dynamics of the Internet.

First and foremost, I told her, is that she needs to be aware that everything she types and posts on the Internet is being watched or recorded by somebody.  Always be very cautious about what information you are posting about yourself.  I warned her that leaks from what people had posted on sites like Facebook have led to divorce, being fired, prevention from getting a job or admission into college (Andrews, Ch. 9).  I told Mrs. M the sad story about Ashley Payne that Lori Andrews relays in her book "I Know Who You Are and I Saw What You Did".  Ashley, a teacher, had posted some pictures of her at the famous Guinness brewery in Ireland on her Facebook page.  Even though her settings were set to private so only her friends could see them, her principle forced her to resign after receiving an anonymous email from a concerned "parent".  Many institutions including schools, credit card companies and employers use information from social networking sites to make decisions about people and most of these institutions, including the courts, consider social networks to be public spaces, not private ones.  Meaning what you post online can be used against you.  (Andrews, Ch. 9) Then, I gave her my copy of Andrews' book and told her to read it.

I didn't get much into the topic of data mining and behavioral advertising that most Internet sites are practicing now but I did want to make her aware of what Eli Pariser, in his book "The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding From You",  calls the "filter bubble".  The great thing about the Internet is that most of the services provided are for free.  For example, Google provides it's search services for free just like Facebook provides it social networking services for free.  However, I informed Mrs. M, there is a hidden cost.  The cost is information about you.  I explained to her that sites like Google use the data that users type to create an Internet universe designed specifically for each individual user.  Google remembers what you have searched for (and clicked on)  in the past to bring back search results they think are more relevant to you.  If I searched for the same thing, I would get a completely different list of results.  News aggregators like the Huffingtonpost.com even attempt to curate the news to what they think a users interests are.  Although personalization seems good, taken to its extreme, it can get pretty ugly.  I explained to Mrs. M what Pariser said in his book, "a world constructed from the familiar is a world in which there's nothing to learn.  If personalization is too acute, it could prevent us from coming into contact with the mind-blowing, preconception-shattering experiences and ideas that change how we think about the world and ourselves". (Intro)  That is pretty powerful.  So until the powers that shape the Internet decide something different, I told Mrs. M to be aware of the "filter bubble" and to intentionally make sure she clicks on and reads a wide array of topics and subjects so she does not limit herself to what she is exposed to on the Internet.  Then, I gave her my cope of Pariser's book and told her to read it.