Privacy

         The issues of privacy are very relevant to new media. As new media has been linked to convenience, privacy has been affected in a negative way. This is especially true with social networking websites. With the prominence of users using social networking sites, it has become easier for outsiders to come in and hack sites that are even private. Being on private doesn't actually, mean being private anymore. Especially when it comes to investigations. But when does privacy become too private? Yes, it is annoying that outside companies, teachers, parents, etc. can view our pages now where we have to watch what we post. That just means we have to be careful not to post anything too out there that we could be judged for or get in trouble for. But isn't that kind of a good thing? Social media privacy can lead to cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is not the only privacy issue prevalent amongst social media sites. What about other criminals besides cyberbullying. With the age of new media comes a much more open communication platform for all users around the world. Terrorists and other high profile criminals can use open communication to share their values along with other harmful people out there. Since it is private, there draws the question of when it is okay to break that privacy for the good of the common people and law. When confidential information is being passed along to dangerous users, it can be hard to get access to this incriminating information with privacy issues.
         Along with communication platforms and social-media posts comes the problem of streaming videos. As mentioned in an earlier post about how creativity can sometimes spark copyright infringements in videos, confidentiality and privacy plays a role in trying to fix just that. According to the article, Youtube Alters Copyright Algorithms, Will 'Manually' Review Some Claims:
"Google-Owned Youtube said Wednesday it is altering its algorithms to reduce invalid copyright infringement claims on its video-sharing site and will begin manually reviewing some claims instead of the system automatically blocking disputed footage."
        It was then decided by Google that Youtube would not be altering its algorithms as there had been problems with copyright blockages in their videos. One of the biggest hiccups was when Youtube's copyright blockers wrongly flagged Michelle Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention. The copyright blocker "automatically put a copyright blocking message on the Livestream video of the event shortly after it ended.". Those working at Youtube had then had to work harder to improve algorithms that identified invalid claims. These improvements in algorithms will try and stop these claims "from automatically affecting user videos and place them in a queue to be manually reviewed."
"YouTube five years ago engineered a filtering system enabling rights holders to upload music and videos they own to a "fingerprinting" database – 500,000 hours of reference files to date. "
     If a full or even partial match was found, the alleged rights holder could have the video automatically removed. This allowed other people to submit their own creative videos that featured snippets from other copyright-protected videos that would allow the original artists to get exposure and ad dollars if they choose to allow these videos to play. That definitely seems to be a good thing. However, when algorithms didn't work properly or overly matched to feed a filter, Youtube users could have their innocent videos falsely removed from the site. Or someone who actually had the copyright to the video such as Michelle Obama from the Democratic National Livestream channel inaccurately filtered and removed.  This is where we see privacy being a major issue again. Privacy and confidential blocks create problems across the board with new media.