Friday, April 22, 2016

Before watching Terms and Conditions May Apply I always believed that I had a good idea of the effects of what I put online would have. I still am aware anything I put on the internet at some point anyone can see and really do whatever they would like with it. After watching this documentary it does surprise me how many people actually have a job of looking up on everything we post online. It sickens me that the Government watches up on everything and takes actions based on what we are posting online. I understand the argument that the government is only trying to help us and they are doing this for our safety. The part I disagree with there is I feel like after a terrorism attack they take a little bit of privacy away from all of us but it is "ok" because it is for our safety. I am also curious as to how many crimes these investigators who monitor social media have actually stopped or if they have just arrested innocent people. I do see how after a crime social media is used a lot to find the guilty party of the crime but I also have never really heard of much success from preventing crimes. With this being said I do think actions need to be taken to protect everyone on the internet. I am a firm believer that people need to be aware that everything they post is always out there and they have to be safe about what they post, but I also do not believe people just be scared to use social media or even delete social media because their online life is too public. To a certain extent I understand whatever you post online is all public information but at some point I believe there is a way to not allow that to happen. I do also believe the government is justified to use our information to solve crimes, this is simply because I have seen several crimes solved by using social media. This then again goes back to preventing crime though, I feel like that is a broad spectrum and the government can spin that out of control resulting in all of the innocent civilians being arrested. At the same time I do believe better safe than sorry and that I would rather have an innocent civilian arrested than not arresting them and it turning out they were somehow a terrorist. But then I believe the government needs to have proper steps or actions to follow to avoid innocent people being effected. I would like to know how many terrorists have been caught or if the government has ever been tipped off from social media about an attack. I also believe they say they monitor our social media to keep us safe because they scare us into thinking about terrorism but the result of that is the government with more power.