Net Neutrality

The internet is quickly becoming a battleground between public and private interests. Think FACEBOOK. On Facebook, when you join a network you can see everyone’s profile, including their birthday, hometown, sexual orientation and pictures. Some set their profile on strict privacy settings, however, many do not. Therefore, within a network of say 10 000 people, I would likely be able to view at least 8000 profiles, find out who they are, where they grew up, what they are interested in, what people say to them, and what they wore last Christmas. One can literally determine their exact lifestyle on a day-to-day basis. I don’t even feel it is necessary to distinguish the features of this conflict, but will anyways. THOUSANDS OF STRANGERS KNOW EXACTLY WHO YOU ARE AND EVERYTHING ABOUT YOUR LIFE. Enough said? Facebook is so unsafe, yet millions of people have an account. I do. You probably do. Our entire class does. If I were given a random name of a student who attends the University of Guelph, I am almost certain that I could tell you almost everything there is to know about that person within 5 minutes of research. That is actually terrifying when you think about it. But no one seems to care...

My sister was a student at the University of Guelph for 5 years, and her art reflected the idea of a lack of privacy on Facebook. She even had an art show at Zavitz dedicated to this theme. My sister, Andrea, would “lurk” students’ profiles, and find very provocative images of students at the school. This would include students making drunken fools out of themselves, being involved in sexual and inappropriate encounters, and so on. She wondered why people would post these pictures on the net for anyone and everyone within the network to see. So she painted them. Seeing as she had an art show, her goal was for these students to see their own portraits and realize that everyone can see them almost having sex or their post drunken states. Unfortunately the kinds of kids who post these pictures rarely go to art shows, so none of them could see how Andrea’s art portrayed them. Her ideas for her art exemplify how the internet is becoming a battleground between public and private interests. The picture above is one of her Facebook inspired pieces.