User Data and Ownership

From some of the course readings this week, a good journal article I reviewed was "User Data on the Social Web: Authorship, Agency, and Appropriation." It was written by Jessica Reyman in 2013 and contributes to the discussion beginning about data usage and ownership of online content by users in social media platforms. Much of the writing actually focuses on Facebook examples as other social media tools were still being developed and emerging after that year. However, this article's topic continues to be a popular area of debate and public consideration.

Data mining was a term commonly used through the reading and area I was somewhat familiar with from my previous summer session course on learning analytics. This excerpt describes online data collection from social media well: “Although users are aware of the content they are contributing online—when sharing a photo, writing a blog post, updating a status, or entering a 140-character tweet—many are unaware of the additional, hidden contributions of data made with each act of participation. Yet these additional contributions of user data are inextricable from each and every act of composing via social and participatory Web technologies.”

There is definitely an ongoing debate that continues to stew, especially with controversy like the leaks that occurred from personal Facebook accounts. The ownership status of various online information forms is not always a clear black and white idea. It seems that there are not simple answers readily given about limiting how online platform providers or users may create and distribute their content. 

The best way to explain the overall point the article was sharing came down to another quote. It is also a good one that I will end this post with... “Rather, they are working collaboratively with other users, texts, and technologies to create content, form networks, and, ultimately, write the social Web.”