November 24, 2020 Meeting By James Rayner
Digital Information Privacy and Security Training (A Webinar for Retirees) – Steve Chapelle
Do you Tweet? Use Facebook? Instagram? It seems that half the world is signed up for some form of Social Media, but Joan and I have not yet gotten on board. From the get-go, we were suspicious of a service that claimed to enhance social contacts but required the user to disclose personal information that could be harvested by media companies. We also wondered how our friends would feel being brought up to date on what we had for dinner at that fancy restaurant or learning that our grandson received 49/50 on his latest math test. According to Steve Chapelle, speaker at the November 24 Probus Club meeting, we were right to be leery.
For years, even centuries, gathering, manipulating, influencing, and spreading information has been an activity practised around the world. Steve cited two examples from the past of successful information moulders that he referred to as the Fathers of Public Relations‘: Ivy Ledbetter Lee worked for John D. Rockefeller after JDR‘s goons had beaten up striking miners and killed some of their family members. Lee devised a campaign where JDR appeared in family situations and was even seen talking to his miners. As a result, Standard Oil regained its favour with the public and continued to make billions.
Another PR man, Edward Bernays, working for Beech Nut Co., was hired to persuade Americans to eat more bacon, as consumption was falling because of automation taking over intense labour-oriented jobs. Of course, he found doctors
who agreed to publicize the fact that bacon and eggs were a good meal and the bacon business thrived.
These two were forerunners of the social media influencers of today. Steve showed us various enterprises that have used social media to influence public opinion, such as the Brexit campaign, the U.S. Republican Party, LUKOIL (close to Vladimir Putin). All these entities have used a mixture of half-truths and lies to persuade users of social media that they have the right answers. We know how that turned out for the world‘s most famous tweeter who is about to lose his job!
Closer to home, the terms of service for Facebook, to which one must agree before getting an account, spell out what they can do with your personal information. In what is a ―bullet-proof contract, they can sell your information (data, if you wish) such as name, address, contacts, content, to unidentified third or fourth parties (advertisers, political parties, foreign agents, etc.) to use as they see fit. A typical Facebook user might claim to have ―nothing to hide because the posted content is plain and harmless. Wrong! Apparently, all the little data points mount up and become a package of information that can be used against you. Advice: before posting, ask yourself, is there something here that can be used against me (like telling ―friends you are going on vacation)? And don‘t think no one can prove it was you who posted or that a social media service is private. Once posted, it is there forever! (see: Anthony Wiener or Tony
Clement.)
Before ending his talk, our speaker mentioned various ways to enhance security on the internet: don‘t use simple passwords; check your settings constantly; don‘t feel you need an account in all social media outlets; make sure content cannot be used against you or yours (e.g. photos); keep contacts to a minimum, checking back to see if messages are genuine; always be alert for phishing—hold the cursor over a link and the source will pop up; remember that banks, credit card companies and utilities never send e-mail messages—they will telephone you.
I found the talk very informative and was pleased that it confirmed my suspicions of social media as a danger zone. The telephone still works for my contact purposes. I don‘t think Steve wants everyone to abandon social media; just be more aware of the dangers that lurk there. Personally, I‘m happy to keep my privacy so I don‘t have to worry about these dangers.
Probus Club of Kingsway-Islington 