As someone who is beyond jaded by social media and the mega-corporations behind them, this news isn’t surprising, and I actually expected to see it long before now, but it gives me no pleasure in seeing our worst fears play out. Motherboard has published a story today about a Nebraska teenager and her mother being charged with several felonies and misdemeanors surrounding the teen’s self-induced abortion after their Facebook DM chat logs were turned over to Nebraska law enforcement by Meta. Despite the divisive act at the root of this incident and the current political storm raging around the overturning of Roe V. Wade, I’m hoping it highlights rather than distracts from the point of this week’s blog.
Social media is the exact opposite of privacy and confidentiality
Social media and its daily use have become so pervasive that for most people it’s just a de-facto part of how they live their lives, to the point where many can’t conceive of life without it. Regardless of whether or not the women from the above story acted illegally or immorally, there should be no equivocation about whether or not a social media platform will turn over your data to law enforcement. The answer is, “Yes, they will.” In this particular instance, Meta (aka Facebook) was abiding by a court-ordered search warrant. This doesn’t excuse them morally, but also falls well within expectations we have called out, over and over again. Following the overturning of Roe V. Wade, Motherboard reached out to all the major social media platforms asking them how they would handle just these types of requests in relation to women’s health and pregnancy rights, and none of them were prepared to go on record saying they wouldn’t do exactly what Facebook did in the above case. Unfortunately, abortion simultaneously highlights and distracts from the issue – it shouldn’t matter what is being kept private – only that it is private. In case it wasn’t clear: don’t expect anything you share on social media to remain private, regardless of how that platform professes to honor that privacy. The only commitment they are required to honor is to their shareholders or the equity firm backing the company, possibly even over the laws of the land.
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
