Privacy

As great as New Media is, it has one downside: Loss of privacy. New Media allows for an expedited high-volume flow of information, but an individual cannot always filter out what kind of information gets published on the internet. I once saw a statement that perfectly summed up privacy on the internet: Everything is remembered, everything is forgotten. Although social media sites allow users to control their privacy settings, there is still a possibility of the user's information leaking out to others. Some companies engage in buying and selling of consumer data. Everything that you keyed in to create your profile such as name, birthday, phone number, address, and etc. all belong to the company. If you take a look at Facebook's policy, everything you post and all the information you give them belong to Facebook. There is an incentive for social media sites to forgo their confidentiality oaths, and to disregard their users' privacy in that selling consumer data is a lucrative business. Privacy is an illusion in New Media, but what's great is that an individual does not have to fear the loss of privacy: Individuals do not have to partake in social media. People who lived before the time of computers, lived fine without things like Facebook. Post things at your own risk. We are the architects of our actions after all.