Danah Boyd: Focus Regulation On Use Of Social Data Not Collection

Social media & youth culture expert Danah Boyd has an interesting opinion piece over at her blog about the use of data. She argues that we are too concerned with trying to control the data that companies collect about us and not enough about the data they can use.

Boyd says that we all collect more information when we meet people in the real world – such as race or age – but we are not allowed to use this information to make business decisions like hiring.

People are sharing content left right and center as part of their daily sociable practices. They’re sharing as if the Internet is a social place, not a professional place. More accurately, they’re sharing in a setting where there’s no clear delineation of social and professional spheres…

I’m sick of hearing about how the onus should be entirely on the person doing the sharing. There are darn good reasons in which people share information and just because you can dig it up doesn’t mean that it’s ethical to use it… I strongly believe that we need to spend more time talking about how information is being used and less time talking about how stupid people are for sharing it in the first place.

Just because a company can access personal information, it doesn’t mean they should use it in their business activity.

Danah Boyd – Regulating the Use of Social Media Data

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