Social Media and Your Privacy
On Thursday of this week it came to many Discord users attention that Discord had changed their terms of service, but they didn't learn this from Discord themselves, instead they learned of this change through the Discord API server meaning it wasn't sent out in masses even though the change was massive. You may be wondering what this change was, well it was a change that made it impossible to sue the company if your information gets leaked from their databases. Specifically they made it so you cannot sue as a collective or launch a class action lawsuit, basically meaning if a large population of people has their information leaked, like what happened to Sony in 2014 except instead of employees it would be users, you could not sue as a collective group only individually through an arbitrator which heavily favors companies over consumers.
This change in their Terms could lead to an issue like what happened with Facebook where they were selling user information but instead the people can't do much against it. This doesn't just affect Discord users though because it gives an example of what some companies could do just so they can save themselves if a data breach ever occurs. Discord made an official statement and said that the change was made because class action lawsuits only get the user "anywhere from ten cents to a couple dollars." But this doesn't exactly get the point of suing a company for leaking your personal information and they just seemed to keep saying that they made the change for the good of the user in their official response on Reddit.
This change in their Terms of Service can mean more than Discord changing their ToS, it sets the example of what a service can do with your information that you provide to them. You should always watch out for whats going on with a service you are using, may it be Twitter, Instagram, or even Snapchat, these are apps that are able to do so much more with information and it makes a point that you should be watching out for whats going on with Social Media applications and with what you can do to protect your private information online.
Most teenagers use social media, around 94% of teens use it, and this leads to large databases of these many users information, but do you ever notice the Terms of Service that flashes to you when creating an account on these sites? Reading through the Terms of Service (or ToS for short) can you help you out in the long run because what it has in it.
Whenever you make an account on any website, you are told to agree to the terms of service which states what information you will give to a website, most of the time it's just basic stuff like what you can and can't do such as copying their content. The most information this usually asks for is your IP address which is used for several things like localizing content you are shown and IP Bans if you are banned for breaching the ToS. These terms are often made just to tell you what you are agreeing to before you agree to it (Like a contract) but sometimes these things change and sometimes they change for the worse.
Whenever you make an account on any website, you are told to agree to the terms of service which states what information you will give to a website, most of the time it's just basic stuff like what you can and can't do such as copying their content. The most information this usually asks for is your IP address which is used for several things like localizing content you are shown and IP Bans if you are banned for breaching the ToS. These terms are often made just to tell you what you are agreeing to before you agree to it (Like a contract) but sometimes these things change and sometimes they change for the worse.
On Thursday of this week it came to many Discord users attention that Discord had changed their terms of service, but they didn't learn this from Discord themselves, instead they learned of this change through the Discord API server meaning it wasn't sent out in masses even though the change was massive. You may be wondering what this change was, well it was a change that made it impossible to sue the company if your information gets leaked from their databases. Specifically they made it so you cannot sue as a collective or launch a class action lawsuit, basically meaning if a large population of people has their information leaked, like what happened to Sony in 2014 except instead of employees it would be users, you could not sue as a collective group only individually through an arbitrator which heavily favors companies over consumers.
This change in their Terms could lead to an issue like what happened with Facebook where they were selling user information but instead the people can't do much against it. This doesn't just affect Discord users though because it gives an example of what some companies could do just so they can save themselves if a data breach ever occurs. Discord made an official statement and said that the change was made because class action lawsuits only get the user "anywhere from ten cents to a couple dollars." But this doesn't exactly get the point of suing a company for leaking your personal information and they just seemed to keep saying that they made the change for the good of the user in their official response on Reddit.
This change in their Terms of Service can mean more than Discord changing their ToS, it sets the example of what a service can do with your information that you provide to them. You should always watch out for whats going on with a service you are using, may it be Twitter, Instagram, or even Snapchat, these are apps that are able to do so much more with information and it makes a point that you should be watching out for whats going on with Social Media applications and with what you can do to protect your private information online.
This is a really good topic and is so important for teens who have social media need to know if they don't already. The flow was really good! You did a great job!
ReplyDeleteI really like the relevancy of your news story, as it pertains to most of the teenagers out there. However, I noticed a few grammatically errors and repetitive words/ phrases. IN the first sentence you used the used the word 'teenagers' and followed it with the word 'teens' shortly after. Its not a big deal, just an observation.
ReplyDeleteAs you said around 94% of teens us social media and I doubt very many of us have sat through and read the ToS. This was very information and I enjoyed reading it. Well done!
ReplyDeleteThis was interesting to read and i learned a lo. There were some repetitive words, but this was really good! nice flow!
ReplyDeleteYour transitions were evident and I liked when you used Facebook as an example. Nice job !
ReplyDeleteSocial media has always had privacy issues but this Discord change is ridiculous. I never got into it but I certainly won't now.
ReplyDeleteYour article is great! Maybe you should explain what Discord is as it's not as big as Facebook or other social medias?
You had very good points and i liked how it was relevant and I actually could relate.
ReplyDelete