Online Privacy

     Listening to the TEDtalk about Online Privacy was very eye opening. It is scary that someone can find out everything about you without ever speaking to you. The man in the video is correct when saying people are often judged simply by whether or not they have tattoos. I never thought about the internet being an electronic tattoo until this video. Some refer to it as a digital footprint, where if theres a video you posted back in 2016 that you don't have access to anymore, someone else might still have access. Like the second video says, the government knows far too much about us, whereas years ago they didn't. This affects my family, friends, and I because it is a terrifying mind game to live in where things you may think are private, some random person in the government knows. The government is obviously invading our privacy, but there is nothing we as citizens can do about it. They should be protecting our information, but instead they dig into personal profiles and sometimes put identities at risk. That is why there was a privacy issue with TikTok. According to this article, "China does collect personal data on Americans and have been doing so for at least a decade, but there is no evidence that it has found a way to benefit from this. China takes advantage of the loophole created by the congressional failure to pass privacy legislation." There was a big enough privacy issue from another country, that the US took action and is now the majority owner of user privacy in the country. But, is this really a good thing? In hindsight you might think so, but if you take a closer look, now the government has even more control over us, and are actively censoring and changing TikTok guidelines for users across the country. To protect ourselves from this is difficult, but VPN's seem to be a great to way block outside users from viewing your data. This is a prominent and dangerous ongoing issue, and the American people need to continue to fight this fight.