I have read and agree to the terms and conditions

"I have read and agree to the terms and conditions" aka pretty much the biggest lie on the internet. We have all probably clicked that little checkbox a hundred times by now, every time we sign up for a new account, or apple decides to revise its legalese. But probably none of us have actually read it. It is this oversight that, according to Lothar Determann in his piece, "Social Media Privacy: A Dozen Terms and Facts" that gets us into trouble with online privacy. His article sets forth the idea that it is the individual's responsibility to secure their own privacy through their own due diligence when he states, "Technologies do not invade privacy, people with technologies invade privacy.58 You and your friends are a threat to your privacy."

I have several issues with this article. Though much of it has a basis in legal fact, which far be it from me to dispute, Determann's assumptions often glance over ethical quandaries in order to bolster his point. For example, in his section on advertising, in response to backlash against advertising companies appropriating user data, he writes, "But can they [advertisers] really be perceived as a significant threat to privacy? Where is the harm? All that advertisers want is to display more relevant advertisements to consumers. That in itself is hardly a bad thing. Relevant advertisements are better than irrelevant advertisements." This reductionist view ignores many of the key components to the outrage. It is one thing to allow for advertiser's to use space on the social media site in exchange for money, but another to sell data. Despite the lack of a legal guarantee of ownership for any tweet or status update I post, I still feel that there is an inherent human right for social media companies to use these materials judiciously and not reduce me personality to wholesale data available to the highest bidder. Perhaps it is time US Law protects that right, whether or not I have read the terms and conditions.

Determann's view that it is the social media users fault and not the companies seems problematic in other ways outside of advertising. For example, when a large number of nude pictures of female celebrities were leaked to the internet, many people's first reaction was to blame these women for taking nude photos of themselves in the first place. This falls in line with Determann's contention that it is the user's responsibility to protect their privacy. To me, this represents an egregious example of victim-blaming. Obviously the person who is most at fault is the person who leaked those photos, but I still feel the media sharing services could still be held accountable for spreading the photos. These photos were illegally obtained and hosting them should hold these companies complicit in that illegal act.