Bill Anderson – They Are Watching You

THEY’RE WATCHING YOU

Last week I published a post on FB and likened having an NIE (our National ID number in Spain) to having herpes: once you have it, you can’t get rid of it.  There was a lot of interest in the post, but what surprised me were the 22 offers of help for my herpes within the first 15 minutes. Having had the chickenpox as a child, I suppose it is true that the herpes simplex virus is still hanging around there waiting for my stress levels to skyrocket and to reappear as a cold sore or something nasty like that.

I didn’t  tag herpes into my post as this was just a wisecrack at the end of the post, but there are so many caring people out there from India to Oklahoma who wanted to sell me a remedy for my affliction. People are so kind. And I didn’t even know any of them. Just random strangers caring about my herpes infection. Isn’t that sweet?

Yet again, though, it raised my warning bells about social media. There are obviously individuals, groups, businesses out there who are screening  Social Media for trigger words and then connecting with posts from people they don’t know, have never met, and have no connection with. I do remember decades ago that people were employed to go through the newspapers looking for specific mentions of names, topics, themes which would them be fed back to whoever contracted them. Imagine how much more dangerous this is then, with Artificial Intelligence and Social Media.

I get concerned when people publish all sorts of sensitive, personal, or unnecessary information about themselves on Social Media and what the implications might be for those who are so clearly watching it in real time. Perhaps it would be wise to be a bit more circumspect about what we publish and when we publish it. It is wise to announce to the whole world that you are currently on holiday in Egypt  and make daily posts? Why not wait until the holiday is over and share it with your friends afterwards?

Also, looking at your security settings to determine who can see your posts. The page I published on was my work page, so it is public and anyone can see it, but I am sure that 10 friends of Dr Ajukabe in India don’t routinely follow my page, nor of Dr Cure in Oklahoma. Even had a very kind African doctor who had a cure for it.

It is great to be connected with the whole world, but these days we cannot go out and leave our front door open or unlocked, yet  for many of us it still seems OK to announce to the world that we are away from home and for how long.  This is not meant as a criticism, but merely a warning that FB and Co are not necessarily as safe and innocent as we might think. Those of us who were not born into the digital age need to consider that what we thought was a massive step forward in keep in touch, may also be a sinister marketing tool or perhaps even worse. Let’s enjoy it, by all means, but be smart.

Trust me, they are watching us. Be careful what you share.