Response to Scholz’s Digital Labor-Joyce Julio
Hello everyone,
My name is Joyce Julio. Our group’s reading was Scholz’s Digital Labor, and we discussed about how Facebook makes money out of its users (particularly its users’ data and activity such as likes and status updates) as well as how the buying and selling of data complicate the way that we differentiate between work and leisure.
We use Facebook for free, mostly to connect with family and friends, to keep ourselves updated on what’s new and what’s going on with them, and to share updates on what’s going on with us. We like our friends’ status, posts, and pictures. We also like certain companies’ Facebook pages and posts. We do these things for leisure. We do not think of this as labor. However, the collection and selling of our data and activities on Facebook to third party companies are sources of profits for Facebook. We may not be aware of this because we enjoy what we do on Facebook such as posting updates and pictures and liking company pages and services. But, the information we share and our activities are being tracked, collected, and shared by Facebook to third party companies.
One might wonder why, after searching for certain products on the Internet (not on Facebook but on sites like Google or Amazon etc.), you will see the same products or services that you searched for on your Facebook as advertisements. This is because unless you opt out of these advertisements options on your privacy settings, Facebook will show these targeted ads on your newsfeed as part of its agreement with those third party companies.
We use this “free” social networking site in exchange for our information and activities that they collect and use for their profits. When we like companies’ and services’ pages, it seems like we advertise for them for free while Facebook gets paid for them. It may seem like the free use of Facebook is just for leisure, but it also involves providing labor to them for free. And I think this is how the buying and selling of data blur the lines between work and leisure.
Thanks,
Joyce
