Time and Google/Facebook good faith will tell if our digital platforms are Rockefeller/Carnegie alike.
According to the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission report, there are issues to address and problems to be solved. Google/Facebook may need to read the report carefully, in order to protect their good business.
Google and Facebook are doing good service to all of us, but questions should be asked, and concerns should be resolved, since there is no perfection in life.
We are the guardians of our privacy, and it is up to us to determine how it will be used.
The data from the report can assist all of us in the future, for example:
- The activities most commonly reported by digital platforms users as being undertaken on a daily basis were looking for or reading online news (48%), streaming content (39%), watching or listening to news (31%) or creating and sharing content (31%).
- People who access news via digital platforms are also likely to access news in other ways.
- A little under three-quarters (72%) agreed or strongly agreed that for some digital platforms, a requirement of usage was allowing the platform to use any content uploaded or shared. There were differences in views of how Digital Platforms may use their information. In particular, less than half of digital platforms users agreed that:
A digital platform having a privacy policy meant it would not share a user’s information with others (43% disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement)
Mobile and tablet apps would only ask permission to access things on a user’s devices that were required for the app to work (43% disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement).
It seems that we will judge if the technology provided is good or bad. Even the best ice-cream shop has complaints, and when it comes to digital platforms there are many interests involve. Therefore, this case is tricky, and maybe that’s why decentralize and non-censorship system/s will gather more attraction in the future.