New Technology Assignment

New technology is coming that has the ability to protect the privacy of social media users: Blockchain.

Blockchain is basically an encrypted online wallet that users can set up to verify to companies that they are who they say they are, all while keeping that information secure and out of the hands of anyone who shouldn’t have access to it. Currently, Blockchain is being tested for financial transactions, but I see it being useful for any kind of transactions.

While this technology is not quite perfected yet, a lot of companies are investing in the technology because we are in somewhat of a privacy crisis. Within the last few months there have been huge security breaches concerning online data, with the biggest example being Facebook’s recent case where they sold data to Cambridge Analitica, who then used that data to target unsuspecting users with fake news and other malicious information. This kind of data breach can have huge impacts on politics, safety, and the rights of users of social media.

Blockchain will do a lot to stop security breaches like the one Facebook encountered, or at least take privacy up a level or two. Currently, all information we enter in online, whether it is a purchase transaction, or private conversation is stored on the world wide web, basically waiting for someone to crack the code to gain access to it. According to this article, once a hacker gains access into an online system, they have access to all the content stored within that system. With Blockchain, a hacker would basically have to hack every single user on that system. Therefore it keeps everyone a lot safer.

But Blockchain has some hurdles before it is ready for public consumption: according to this article, there is still a lot of internal bugs within Blockchain that need to work out. Because not all of the data is encrypted, they are still working out some legal issues, especially in countries like Germany.

Blockchain will also protect users against data tampering, since every user would be notified if someone was trying to change the data.

Overall, I see Blockchain being a huge boon for social media privacy. Prior to the last few years, I was never overly concerned on what information of mine was floating out there. But taking this class has helped me realize that my data is really very valuable, and I want it to be protected, especially when it comes to social media.