Facebook and Google Surveillance Poses Threat to Human Rights: Amnesty International

facebook and google surveillance threatens human rights

Facebook and Google are time-and-time once again labeled as surveillance powerhouses. They are often chosen out for having too much information on its users. Well, well-known man rights not-turn a profit Amnesty International recently published a report calling out both Google and Facebook for their surveillance-based business models. It slams these two tech giants saying they are a threat to user privacy, human rights, and free expression in today'south age.

Amnesty has published a threescore-page report titled Surveillance Giants and it explores how 2 tech giants among the "Big Five" (which includes Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook) are powerful enough to enable human rights harm at a population scale. Over one-third of the Earth'southward population uses Facebook whereas Google powers 90% of online searches. The latter has established a monopoly in online search and in that location's no denying that.

The report farther mentioned, "The companies' surveillance-based business model forces people to make a Faustian bargain (a pact where a person trades something of supreme moral or spiritual importance, like their soul), whereby they are only able to savor their human rights online by submitting to a organisation predicated on human rights corruption."

Both the tech giants are said to accept fabricated users reliant on their services. This has now given Google and Facebook the power to "monitor every search query and bulletin," every bit per Immunity's report. One shouldn't requite in to this "pervasive surveillance mechanism" to afterward their data being weaponized to influence the user. Amnesty has joined a myriad of critics in slamming 2 of the biggest tech giants on the planet.

Commenting on this report, Kumi Naidoo, Secretary-General of Amnesty International stated, "Billions of people have no meaningful choice but to admission this public space on terms dictated past Facebook and Google. This isn't the Internet people signed up for."

In response to Amnesty's study, a Google spokesperson doled out this statement to The Verge – "We [Google] recognize that people trust us with their information and that nosotros have a responsibility to protect it. Over the by 18 months, we accept made meaning changes and congenital tools to give people more control over their data."

Facebook has also released an official statement said, "Our business model is how groups like Immunity International – who currently run ads on Facebook – reach supporters, raise money, and advance their mission." And though Amnesty is running ads on Facebook, the non-turn a profit's solution to the problem is changing the business organization model.

The report outlines measures to counter the surveillance and the threat two tech bigwigs pose to human rights and our liberty of expression. Immunity states that equally long as tech companies rely on ads to make money, information technology will be their favorite currency. There'south currently no alternative strategy being employed past these companies.

The 2d solution is, well, more regulation past government bodies. Google and Facebook are already under scrutiny for information drove and uncompetitive business organization practices. Simply, it seems like Amnesty is pushing for "new data privacy laws" and aggressively enforcing the ones that currently exist. Practise you concord with Amnesty'southward report? Let us know down in the comment section.