Reading Activity 0202 : Social Group Activity and the Horrors of (and my polite decline) Googling myself (with preview)

Reading ACTIVITY 0202

Social Group Activity and the Horrors of(and my polite decline) Googling Myself

As an astrology student most of my groups online are through facebook and are about every single topic I could find on the subject as my goal is professional practice. I engage with these groups more than any others, and more than any platform (engagement being actual commenting and discussion and even sharing of charts and asking questions of the group, ending up in rather intimate conversation about things like relationships and family and all the things people are interested in knowing about when they consult an astrologer. The reason I'm not just a lurker in these groups is because I am actively trying to learn and also to help people who have less knowledge because as we should know, teaching always helps us to learn more. I think the impulse I have in engaging as such is, from the text in Chapter 2, is primarily a combination of a curiosity impulse and personal utility impulse, (to clarify this is about social groups NOT any interest in products or brands in terms of my impulse). 

ACTIVITY 0203

I must politely decline to Google myself. The last time I did so,  in 2012, the horror of what I saw has kept me from every doing it again. I am definitely an ignorance is bliss type, I use social media because I see no other way of connecting with people anymore, particularly private letters/messaging/videomessaging, I mean, barely anyone emails anymore, particualry younger generations, and it bleeds up. But I'm one of those paranoid, unwilling, yet trapped types. I absolutely abhor the use of my data, it's collection, its permenance and it's corporate storage (forever) yet I can't get off. I know people who have. Guess what? I forgot they existed. I guess they were trying to write novels and facebook/instagram distracted them, I wonder if it will impact the engagement with and success of the creative project they were trying to finish without the distraction of social media because they are failing to inform social networks about said projects.

What I saw the last time I ever will Google myself was my exact location at the time, including address, as well as my picture everywhere, my every comment on every youtube video, every like there, every letter I'd written to a public servent on some open platform signed with my name, every single petition I'd ever signed in my real name, awards I'd won in highschool, articles I had written in highschool and college, or was mentioned in (cringe cringe cringe) and more. At this point, I finally realized the implications of having put my real name on my social media platforms and my email address being my name. I don't know why I did so, I think it's because way back in 1998 when I made my first email address, and as well in about 2007 when I signed up for facebook, I had no real sense of what the consequences would be. I ddn't think of marketing certainly, and I didn't think of what the implications might be down the line for things like law enforcement access, potential gvt agency access, and in the event of a totalitarian dictatorship or hostile government, their ability to access my every thought (via what we google, like some kind of diary) and use that information for whatever nefarious purpose they chose. I didn't think about what was stored, at that time I'm sure it was different than now, but I have read that our data (every keystroke) is stored by Google, four copies each, and it is very unclear when researching this, how long, if ever they keep that information. I discovered that their servers are in weird innocuous looking buildings in the desert surrounded by high security. The value of that information, essentially knowing everything about everyone, I had no clue. I had friends who were more savvy, and never joined the networks, and now I think that people who are not on facebook or it's children (instagram for example) are probably the coolest people to know. Not only did they protect themselves with forsight, but they also are obviously the type to stray from the pack on purpose which I do admire. 

I had to stop the Googling of myself as I had a full blown panick attack. At that point I tried getting off facebook, and I managed to get pretty far (deleted most people, and found an attachment or I forget what it was called but I was able to use it to delete all my posts and likes very quickly without me having to do it. I don't know why I changed my mind). I noticed the one thing on Facebook at the time that I could not get rid of by myself was every single event that I had been invited to, by someone else who had created the event page. In other words, since they had added me, they had to take me off. Most events where I was invited and through which my profile could be accessed, or at the very least my presence and connection with this community known, never went away. Every event was still listed after it had taken place. Apart from connecting with every person (thousands at that point) who had invited me and asking them to remove me (how hard would that be for them as well to scroll and try to find it) there was no way to truly erase my footprint. Not to mention the obvious, deleting myself and my activity doesn't stop the permenant storage of everything I had ever done anyway. It was just a protection from future information storage. The past is stuck. It's there. It can never be taken away from Google, even though it can be taken from other people. Which would you choose for privacy? Obviously there can be no protection when it comes to private thoughtless and very personal (perhaps even about illegal activity) in personal discussions.

I plan to watch a video about the issues brought up for me here, and so far in the text, in a documentary called 'The Social Dillema' which I  haven't watched, again I"m nervous too but whoever is reading this (probably just you Ashley) I wonder if you have, what you thought. (preview at the top of this entery)  

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/09/movies/the-social-dilemma-review.html