TED ALİAĞA COLLEGE / 9-A
Online Privacy
Talha Arda BOZ
26
Governments , companies , economies ; literally everything in our daily life is all connected to one point : The internet . Every day , millions of people are using it all around the world and it has become one of the most indispensable tools in our world . Since the beginning of the internet era , we have been connected to it in almost every way . Every personal detail about us , from what we had for dinner the previous night to what our political ideology is possible to be accessed . And there is no way we can prevent this from happening anymore . That is one of the reasons why we should never give up on our right to online privacy .
In 2016 , one of the biggest social media platforms in the world was said to have manipulated election results by using personalized political ads and raising funds . The social media giant was said to be massively influential , not because it was tipping the scales with fake news , but because it helped generate the bulk of the campaign ’ s $ 250 million in online fundraising . Even more , in 2018 , data-sharing deals were exposed and 2.1 billion user ’ s information was shared with other giant tech firms . If a single company could accomplish this much with such significant personal details ; Imagine what governments could do !
Today , there is a system called “ Mass Surveillance ”. It is the network of monitoring systems used by the government to supervise the lives of citizens . In authoritarian regimes , the internet can easily be used to blacklist people due to their political ideas . Even though an internet environment where you can express your ideas and raise your voice against anything freely is necessary , you could never trust such a system in criminal situations because your data could easily be used against you and you would be treated as a criminal while the only thing you have done is thinking differently and speaking your mind about politics or simply criticizing your governance .
Considering all these facts , abandoning online privacy would be a dark scenario for humanity taking into account the pace of technological development and its prevailing dominance over our world . The internet service providers must guarantee complete protection and safety to the users by not sharing any information with neither the governments nor the private companies . We have to protect our right to privacy and be completely secure online .