Privacy on Social Medias
This week's assignment from Social Media & Digital Culture class is to reflect how we did to protect our privacy in this big data era. My professor shared several interesting articles to provoke us to think about this issue. One of the reading materials that she shared with us is the news about Carly Mckinney.
After reading these materials, I went over my base camp and NLS and made sure
is not linked to my Facebook account where I often post pictures of myself with my friends and family. I also went through the pictures and contents that I shared with my audience to make sure there is nothing would sabtage my career.
Keeping my personal life private and leaving fewer traces of my offline life has always been one of the concerns when I set up for the base camp site. I would never friend with my students on social medias, even after they graduated from high school. We have read too many reports about teachers got suspended or asked to leave because of the pictures they posted on their social media accounts. I would never want to see my name popping on the news one day. It is not that I would post something as racy as Carly McKinney did. But it is always good to remember that there is no taking back when you put something online. Sometimes pictures are often interpreted out of context and can cause problems for ourselves.
Now I have the base camp and also the NLS, where my students can join, I make sure I invited students through their school Gmail account where our conversations can be tracked and monitored by my work. My concern is that since I set up the NLS to be open to the public, anyone who is interested in this NLS can join, then there is potential that my students are interacting with the people from outside of the school and I will not have any control of their communication. So for that reason, I set up my NLS in the way that people have to ask to join.
A couple weeks ago, a FBI agent came to my school and talked about online safety with the middle school students. He mentioned that the pictures we took with our phones have included has included the information where the picture was taken. So if you took the picture at your home and posted it online, it is possible for other people to find out your home address. I was shocked to find out this information. If you have same the concern, below are the instructions of turning off the geolocator on your phones' camera.
