If you are a citizen of Pakistan, it is to be duly noted that Pakistan ranks lowest, just above India and below Indonesia. This list also included Iran, Thailand and South Africa, with Iran taking the last place at having any privacy laws for its citizens. This allows conglomerates to take information and collect data on your personal profile through social media. Let’s take Facebook for example, we all know the reptilian beast that runs Facebook known as Zuckerberg, likes to collect data and spy on his users.
This data is then sold to his clients through Facebook and Instagram adverts. However, you don’t know the extent of breach in privacy that Facebook comes with. Facebook dives into all websites that offer a “Login with Facebook” or “Like through Facebook” button. This offer by websites require them to make a pact with Facebook or Google, of terms and services that these website owners probably did not pay attention to.
These terms allow Facebook to infiltrate your activity on other websites legally by planting a cookie on your account as well as your device. You may think, “I know how to delete cookies!” Well, actually. Facebook basically said no, they plant the cookie in your phone which works as a semi-permanent data collection vacuum that collects your information and profile data while lying dormant on your phone.
Then, once you connect to Facebook or general internet websites that connect with Facebook, you will hand off your data to them. This means, Facebook profile is created more meticulously than an FBI or Inter-Services Intelligence’s profile on you. This means Facebook has more power over you then even your own spying government. (and Yes, your government is spying on you too, what did you expect?)
Many other social media services aimed at business management and business to business connections also involve invasion of privacy such as LinkedIn or Fiverr. They make a profile of your business and yourself, they also sell this information to other services, ever get weird phone calls from well-timed call agents of companies. Well, many people willing hand-over this information, whine other’s do not.
There are good and honest companies like EE Stone, that are transparent about their business venture and their business to business relation. They provide a secure and private business oriented social media websites where you know the risk and management. You can go through the terms and services to see that EE Stone is permission based.
Everything is in your face; you are responsible for all information’s privacy because they remind you again and again. The profiles also start as private and are secure, you can add on extra security through settings and there is one important thing in EE Stone, you can choose the setting that takes away the right of information a company has. They can not collect data on you personally.
One thing about EE Stone that makes it more bearable is that it tells you what information will be public, such as the business numbers for your public projects or something along the line. Non-secure business social medias can cause a great threat to your team management and cyber security. On other media websites, people can go about slandering your business, such as ex-employees not looking to bury any hatchet.
On EE Stone, one thing that stood out was the fact that this website allows you to add other people of the platform into a company page as their occupation, such as CEO, Employee, Manager, HR Director, etc. This allows your employees to be more on guard about the reputation of the company as well as their own.
In the past years, many companies have faced the issue of employee ill-manner. This means an employee that is listed as a company worker on the profile, commits a dumb act online and it reflects the company badly. Let’s take an example of Justine Sacco, who made a thoughtless tweet that enraged the media, general public and her company. It brough great dismay to the company and ruined quite a bit of their image, if they had not handled the situation as swiftly, they would be ruined in public eyes.
So, what did Sacco do? She basically went onto twitter before getting on the flight for her African work trip. Her direct tweet said “Going to Africa! Hope I don’t get AIDS, JK. I’m White.” As you can imagine, the factual incorrectness and the outright racism oozing out of the tweet enraged all of the internet. She probably even out-racist Trump. Firstly, AIDs are sexually transmitted or through swapping of fluids. Secondly, everyone can get them, white – black – brown – red – orange, everyone. Also, to be clear, AIDS are not limited to Africa and many people in America have AIDS.
So, IAC, the company she worked for, was highly shocked by this behaviour when it was brough to their attention by the enraged people on Twitter retweeting it to the company official site. Had the company not been active or they had not been brough to attention on the matter soon enough, it would have brough a drastic change in the public opinion of the company in the public eyes, and not for a good reason.
Many other companies have gone through this, so they make sure to keep a track of their employees. How they portray their image can show the company’s image too. Websites like EE Stone that allow you to include the employees on the page helps the employees be more aware of what they are posting. The Team management software even allows you to keep track of everyone on the page. This is extremely helpful in cases where security is sensitivity, image needs to be curated. Mistakes can be made but not publicly.
In an online environment such as this, it is important to show a solid image online and to keep your company image in check. If the social media platform you use for your company does not allow privacy or is not transparent about data collection, they may yet be very shady.
