The Dark Side of Data: How Companies Use Your Information Against You

People used to think and some of them still believe that their personal data is protected thanks to the advancements of technology. However, that’s not the case. In the Netflix documentary, “The Great Hack” it shows you how companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google steal your personal data to manipulate you in order to benefit from you. 

These companies would acquire your data by making the user complete a simple and innocent “personality test” without you raising suspicions. But in reality you were giving them more information than you realize. They would use this data collected, analyze it and then create data points. 

Imagine everything you upload on a daily basis - your likes, your dislikes, things that you share and even your friends - have enough data for the company to use it to manipulate you into doing things that best benefits them.

During the 2016 election, there was a lot of mixed controversy - involvement of Russia, election hacking and fraud. But there was a company that influenced the voters so that they could vote for the candidate that they wanted. 

This company was Cambridge Analytica. By using the personal data of about 87 million Facebook accounts to manipulate the user into voting for the desired candidate. Cambridge Analytica would use psychographics to target a certain number of Americans and classify them as persuadable, meaning that these people could be easily influenced. 

They would acquire the data without the acknowledgement and consent of the user by using a third-party app that collected data from their Facebook accounts. This was a terrifying truth, given how many people use Facebook today.

Our personal data is already compromised and we don’t know it yet. Our social media accounts know more about us than probably ourselves, since we have given them everything that we are. Our likes, our dislikes, our friends and our banking information. 

It’s amazing how a personality survey can acquire so much information about the user without his/her acknowledgement and permission. We must control and limit how much information we give to these companies and apps since they can use that data against us to manipulate us into doing what they want without realizing it until it is too late. 

To conclude, technology has been a gift, the benchmark for medicine, communication, transportation and entertainment. However, technology has also been a gift for those who want to deceive and take advantage of others, of the good people, people who have everything to lose, people with families and no money. 

These people that have malicious intent to harm others and deceive deserve to be in jail.

That’s why we have to take necessary precautions to protect our personal data and acknowledge that our data is far more vulnerable than it was before.

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