Am I a part of Big Brother? I wonder, considering my job as a search engine evaluator. A what? Yes, this is the typical response I get when I mention my job title--a search engine evaluator is someone who sits at a computer all day rating web pages so that when you, dear reader, type in a question in a search engine like Google, useful web links are displayed on the page that pops up. Hopefully if we are doing our jobs correctly, the best, most vital or relevant pages will be at the top of the list and those that are not so relevant or even off-topic are at the bottom or don't even appear until page 3.
I didn't really question my being a part of Big Brother until I started doing experimental tasks for the company I work for in the arena of tweets off of Twitter. The task involves a query, usually a name of someone famous, or a sports team, then several hyperlinks to tweets that contain that name in them in some capacity. I suddenly felt like I was reading some one's private mail while doing these. Just because the name "Carey" popped up, for instance, I was supposed to decide if the tweet had any relevance to Mariah...I felt uncomfortable performing this task and yet, since it is part of my job, went ahead with the project.
I wonder how the company plucks these tweets out of the air to rate, what kind of software program that signals key words to flag is used, and more importantly, if people know that the security or privacy on things like their tweets is questionable and people like me are reading their personal comments. Maybe it is all for the greater good, but it kind of gave me the creeps. I'm glad I don't use Twitter and I have tried to protect what I do put out there in the world even more. I suggest you do the same.
Hi Lee - I was told a long time ago, consider anything you put on the Internet (email, message board post, Twitter though it wasn't around back then) could be put on a billboard in Times Square the next day. Or five years from now. Which reminds me, I posted something I want to go back and change...
ReplyDeleteI think it's interesting that at the same time, we have people complaining about intrusions by the government into privacy (library records, access to email records, the whole Patriot Act) and people wanting to send naked pictures via cell phone and put their sexual adventures on their websites without consequence. It's like we want it both ways - though I suspect it isn't the same people worrying about both at once. ;)