A lot of people complain about the information we provide to Facebook and other social media sites being sold to private companies as marketing research. Here is my simple answer: let them do it! Why? Well that is as simple as the fact that they are providing a free service (the social media platform) and deserve some type of compensation for their work. If that comes in the form of my activity on their platform than that is a lot better than me paying monthly to use their service like I do for a music streaming service. To put it in perspective, if Spotify, a leading music streaming service, offered a free version of the service and all they needed in compensation was to be able to sell to companies what music I listen to I would be happy to agree to that instead of the $60 fee per year.
Christian Fuchs argues in his essay, "The political economy of privacy on Facebook" that we as social media users are providing free labor to the companies who sell our data for profit. I argue that labor implies compensation of some type. In this case, our compensation is free access to the social media platform rather than having to pay for it. If this was a physical service such as a yoga class or a painter coming to paint your house, would you complain if they gave a free service in exchange for you filling out a survey? I certainly wouldn’t. Both parties benefit because I save money and the yoga instructor or the painter gain valuable information on how to acquire and further please future customers. Therefore, the compensation for their labor comes in the form of information not pay. This is analogous to the business model of leading social media platforms such as Facebook.
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Max BrownA student athlete passionate about biophysics and identifying cancer drug targets. ArchivesCategories |