This week’s reading brought up many discussions that we have had throughout the weeks during class. My attention was immediately drawn to Preparing students to develop critical digital literacies and advocate for privacy in digital spaces by Colleen A. Reilly. She demonstrates the sole purpose of our Critical Digital Literacies course. To help students become aware of the dangers of our privacy in digital spaces.
Reilly and Vie
Reilly starts off her discussion discussing our 4th amendment, which is protecting against search and seizure. “US citizens may not be aware that the Fourth Amendment protections against search and seizure have not been interpreted to apply to many of the data gathering activities that take place online. For instance, the US government exempts computer searches from the Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches by electing to not to classify investigations of non-content data, metadata, as searches” (2).
First and foremost, the 4th amendment basically has a loophole which is that companies/government can surveil anyone without reasonable suspicion. As well as companies who track all of our data the minute we click on a website. This specific topic was very eye opening when we first discussed this in class. I remember the first day of this course, when we were being introduced to the upcoming readings, and we spoke a lot about data tracking. Especially from Jonena’s insightful presentation, when she provided helpful websites that blocked data trackers.
On the topic of the first few classes, Stephanie Vie’s piece The more things change, the more we need new tactics for resistance, Or: Let’s not let the bastards grind us down also brought up reading the Fine Print. Vie mentioned that “ Social technologies in everyday life means it is near-impossible to opt out of the terms offered by these sites” (2). She continues to talk about how the fine print terms are unavoidable. We are living in an era where technology is everywhere, to the point where we don’t even have to talk to anyone when wanting to eat at McDonalds. I will literally see an empty line, watch the employee waiting, and still go order at a kiosk because of social anxiety. I digress. But you see my point.
Throughout the course we were exposed to readings as such, that are doing exactly what was intended. To help people as well as students to understand their compromised information. This digital era is expanding, with more “Allow” and “Do not allow”, and we are in a time crunch. So obviously everyone will pick “Allow” just to move on. But do we even know what we are agreeing to? That is a question that both of these pieces bring up, and they ask questions that are all in the back of our heads and we’re trying to avoid them..but why?
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