Title of Essay, Author, and Date

S ocial Media Scanning: The Next Generation Privacy Threat? by Nikki Williams (November 26, 2014)

Title of the Reflection

I n Search of Something

Quote

Ditto is, “looking at public photos, so anyone who wants to keep their information more private certainly has ways to share things just with their friends without [the photos] being available to Ditto.”

Social media measurement or ‘social media monitoring’ is an active monitoring of social media channels for information, usually tracking of various social media content such as blogs, wikis, news sites, micro-blogs such as Twitter, social networking sites, video/photo sharing websites, forums, message boards and user-generated content in general as a way to determine the volume and sentiment of online conversation about a brand or topic.

Unlike older methods of monitoring such as loyalty cards, social media scanning catches many consumers off-guard. According to a survey by Consumer Action, half of the individuals polled thought that such tracking was illegal, and more than a third are unaware of the extent of online tracking. In addition, logo detection capability is provided to discern if there are any branded items in the picture. With the ability to scan for up to 2,500 items in every photo, Ditto Labs’ product can give marketers a detailed outline of a person’s daily habits, inclinations, and travels. A definite ethical problem also occurs when companies spy on social media sites to tailor pricing to individual customers using geolocation. In the social media world, one’s location can be quite easy to track with apps like Four Square on Facebook and the location feature on Twitter.  Another issue is that companies that collect data through social media can combine that data with court records, income data and tax records on individual consumers to get an identifiable profile. This industry, called data brokering, is growing by leaps and bounds and is rife with duplicity.

Social media scanning is like gathering information to the audience to know their feedback on a specific kind of products, topics or even issues in the internet. It helps the business to plan more regarding what their customers wants and what is the best ways to get their attention. Maybe it may become privacy threat because it allows other people to see, what the post in the internet shouldn’t be posts it.

5 things I've learned

1.  Ditto Labs’ software, the newest entry into the online tracking world, can offer marketers.
2. Ditto Lab’s unique software analyzes photos from social sites using background detection and geocoding information. The program can identify the photo location and can also analyze faces and assign them a “facial mood score” (FMS) to determine the emotion being portrayed in the shot.
3.  Facebook gives information on users who click a “Like” button to advertisers, LinkedIn sells information about everything you click on to other users of the site, and firms who purchase user information from Twitter sell it to analytics firms.
4. Another issue is that companies that collect data through social media can combine that data with court records, income data and tax records on individual consumers to get an identifiable profile. This industry, called data brokering, is growing by leaps and bounds and is rife with duplicity.
5. Legislative organizations need to scrutinize and, perhaps, redefine “public” to exclude those online social spaces that are used for intimate exchanges among invited users so individuals can feel free to be their authentic selves without fear of leaving traceable personal details.