Ben Kepes, tech commentator, 46 Grant Sidaway, Seniornet executive officer, 65 Elyse Smaill and Katie Bonne, school pupils, 17
THE DATA DUMP
Lurker or oversharer?
I’ve been on Facebook for about 12 years, and I’m a heavy user. As such it would be naive of me to think I hadn’t left a massive digital footprint over the years. I also use Google apps, gsuite, Google hangouts – basically everything Google does.
What’s in the bag:
My Facebook archive – which extends to nearly a gigabyte of data – contains thousands of photos, messages, videos and contact information for my friends list. I came away after trawling my archive not with any sense of horror at how much data Facebook has about me, but rather a deeper appreciation of the scale of the social graph that Mark Zuckerberg and his cronies has created. I’ve always been comfortable sharing my life online, and downloading my archive simply confirmed to me that I act accordingly.
We visit Facebook to communicate, share photos and videos and to arrange events – the amount of personal data that Facebook holds about me is to be expected. Google’s data aggregation feels more insidious than Facebook’s. Whereas Facebook looks at us and overtly captures what we do, it feels more like Google is observing us out of the corner of its eye and tracking things which, perhaps, verge on the creepy. That’s not to say I am surprised about any of the information Google has about me.
My perspective has always been that if I get a better experience – whether it’s being suggested a cafe when I’m on the other side of the world, or connecting with friends or whatever – I’m happy for brands to waste their money sending me advertising that I’m going to completely ignore. That for me has always been the implicit contract between myself and the social networks.
I’m not on Facebook a lot. I set up significant controls from the outset. I’m old – I’ve been around long enough to know that if anything is free, there’s always a catch. It’s only for family purposes. I had a birthday, people congratulated me, I posted some photos. That’s lovely, but that’s as far as it goes. People that know me will call me and we will visit each other.
I use the Dominion Post check – would I be comfortable with anything I do or say being reported in The Dominion Post? And if I can give myself a tick there, I’m happy to do anything on the internet.
There’s nothing much in my Facebook profile – four videos, half a dozen pictures. I’m married and I like going to football and that sort of stuff is profiled in there. Does it cause me any angst? No. I looked at the ad words and subsequently deleted a few – don’t know why I had one called women’s issues! I’ll probably go back in a month’s time and see
Lurker or oversharer?
What’s in the bag?
are those settings still in place.
The Google data was really interesting – location services, there was a hell of a lot in there. I travelled to the UK – it was like going back in time. Oh, I remember going to that restaurant, that was lovely. I had forgotten what time I went there. All that detail was unbelievably astounding.
In my view, the positive aspects of social media far outweigh the negative aspects, particularly for older people who can be isolated.
Lurker or oversharer?
Elyse: I don’t post heaps on Facebook but use it a lot for connecting with friends overseas, to organise events. I have gmail for both school and personal. I watch a lot of movie trailers on YouTube and upload short videos for friends or school. I use Google drive quite a bit, and Google classroom.
Katie: I don’t use Facebook much, mainly for admin groups. Socially I don’t use it much to post things. I’m quite conscious of what photos and things I put up there. I use gmail as my main email address – I don’t think too much about privacy for that. On YouTube I mainly listen to music – not things I’d be concerned about other people knowing.
What’s in the bag?
Elyse: 1.4GB of Facebook data, including friends’ cellphone numbers, complete Messenger conversations and about 40 companies who have uploaded her contact list, including games like Candy Crush she can’t remember ever playing.
15 folders of Google data, each
2GB: Email, YouTube history, contacts.
‘‘I’m probably on Facebook a lot! The ad topics you could probably take from pages I’ve liked. The YouTube history – I don’t see the problem. They use that to recommend other videos and sometimes you want that. In the end I’m not all that worried about it. Generally it’s computer programmes going through this anyway. And if there was a person looking at my personal page, there’s not that much they are going to find of interest, except for marketing things.
‘‘We do need more clarity about who does use your stuff. It’s probably in the terms and conditions but that’s hard to explain to a
13-year-old. I think it steps over the line with political campaigns, but in the end I’m not that bothered about programmes seeing what I’ve done.’’
Katie: 670MB of Facebook data, including unfamiliar video, two seconds of audio that sounds like breathing and an audio clip she recorded on her phone but never shared to Facebook. It also says Instagram has uploaded her contact list – she doesn’t have an Instagram account.
‘‘It’s interesting how they’ve got every single message you’ve ever sent – I think I’m going to be a lot more careful about what I send. In terms of Google reading your emails – I think it would be great if you were more aware of that and had the option to opt out. I did look at trying to opt out of customised advertising. I think you’ve got so much data – who is going to actually trawl through that and use it against you? I think there’s definitely reason to be cautious about what you share with Google and Facebook, but you have to keep it in perspective.’’