We are the first generation to be able to shape and mold a medium in the media. We now have power to directly affect what media is shown, for example on a web page to a certain extent. Tagging is an aspect that was born with Web 2.0, that helped launch a communal online society. Tagging is the idea that any individual user can make their imprint on a piece of data which enables them or other users to access the data again with ease. This could include photos,videos, pieces of text, rating a website and links.
Sites such as facebook and twitter have a collection of data visible on one page. This contains metadata which is data giving another piece of data an imprint such as a photo tag or a twitter tweet so we can revisit the data with ease. This is essentialy the system of tagging as well as tagging yourself with every piece of data that you identify. On sites such as Facebook, you can use a tool to like a photo, video, band, company pages and campaigns among other things. As well as this you can tag yourself in a photo, video, post and places of where you have been. A great feauture for the users, who can in a sense attribute a part of them on the the internet for others to share their views, thoughts and traits. A sharing experience of every part of your life, freely available to read your story.
The tagging though is a literal imprint of your visit. For example, on wikipedia every article that is edited or written is not completely anonymous. You can infact trace down the route of the editor by using sites such as http://wikiwatcher.com/ which identify's the ip address that was used. Past articles have been found to be edited by orangisations such as the FBI,CIA and politicians. "It violates Wikipedia's neutrality guidelines for a person with close ties to an
issue to contribute to an entry about it, said spokeswoman Sandy Ordonez of the
Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia's parent organization". This neutrality guideline is essential because if it is not abided by, then there is no way that the post can be impartial, which breaks a feundamental of democracy. As a result of of this tagging, a log of your activity's are recorded which is in some cases are good.
Every person who uses youtube for example are creating money for the company even though it is a free service. This is because youtube only uses a basic structure of website with limited data of it's own existing, for example, advertising videos and banners. The rest of the website is left to be created by the internet community who upload videos, tag, comment and watch videos free of tube. Although Youtube are giving us the service to use free of charge, we are in effect, also giving Youtube a service free of charge by creating data (videos) and uploading them to the site creating the rest of the site! This is one of the ways Youtube makes money as it then makes money from advertisments from the vast amount of users. Should we get paid for this as we are making the products it makes money from? What company wouldn't dream of free labour?
Facebook uses the links you go to on the site to piece together your life activitys, friends, traits and also for advertising purposes. This is done to make the user expierience easy,useful and friendly. This also begs the question, do we want a company to be able to harvest all of our personal information and keep it in their hands of independant body? We are teaching Facebook everytime we use it and click on links. The friends you interact with, such as talking to them on chat, clicking their profile, photos you are in together will tell facebook your friendship group or acquientences as a pattern will emerge of the people you interact with. This is then used for example, to manipulate advertisements to mention bands your friends may like as to try to appeal to that individual user. As well as this in the chat menu, they have two categories; the first categorie shows the people you interact with the most and the second is the rest of your friends. This gives them an insight into the world outside of facebook that involves you.
Facebook has also, been found to have been logging down every page you visit outside of facebook which is a major privacy breach. They have been found breaching privacy on many occasions since they were established. It would seem facebook would rather have their own way with the laws and have taken to making a lobbying group on Capitol Hill to make their voices heard more closely. "According to U.S. reports Facebook has
recently set up its own Political Action Committee, an American term for a
lobbying outfit to get its views heard on Capitol Hill. So far this year it has already spent £352,000
on lobbying, already ahead of last year’s total of
£224,000". This is a worrying factor because Facebook will now have a chance to effect laws that are in place or new laws that are coming, to benefit the company in some way and lesson the chance their business model will be hurt whilst stamping on our rights!
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