Political Protest

For our protest piece we decided to take a more controversial approach to our theme. I personally feel the problem with a lot of protest work is that we end up just preaching to the converted. Yes, we all know animal testing is wrong but covering ourselves in rotten meat and screaming isn't going to change the world. This is why we have decided to protest the internet! Now here me out; I'm not trying to boycott the entire information superhighway rather the privacy or lack thereof on social media sites. In lieu of the "TalkTalk scandal" where four MILLION customers personal details were hacked and stolen and a ransom was issued. Isn't it crazy where we live in a world that our personal information can be taken and used a barter?

We live in a society in which anyone with your name or any vague facts about you can learn your entire life story; don't have to be a class A hacker to scroll down someone's Facebook timeline. We spent a good portion of our time in lesson legally access people's social media profiles and harvesting as much an information as possible, including birthday's, family member's names, recent holidays, pet's anything that was personal but they are willing put on the internet for anyone to access. We then type this information up into profiles including pictures. We plan to "sell" these to the audience of our protest.

We have cleverly utilised our connections with the lower year, we mainly used them for our profiles and as we know that we would be interacting with their friends this would have a larger impact than if it was just a total stranger than it would be less effective. If we give them information they already know it will creep them out and if we give them new information they will most likely go and ask their friend if it's correct or not. Although because they don't know us personally we are applying the verfremdungseffekt, alienating them making them realise that this is REAL and how messed up it is that someone can just intrude on their personal lives and take any information that they want. 

The piece is also making a comment on how valuable
personal information can be. Advertising companies pay loads to marketing geniuses in order to sell their products. Some companies go as far to pay people to have access to your internet browsing history to make an online profile of your likes and dislikes. From this they can determine what to sell you, if they know who you are, if they know who your favorutie bands are, your hobbies, your interests, they know what adverts to show you so pique your interest. It's crazy how your information is so valuable to these companies and they lengths they would go to to acquire it.

In 2015 personal information is so valuable; what if we were all reduce to ink on a piece of paper and carted off for a price?

Sources:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34784980
http://www.mobilenewscwp.co.uk/2015/10/23/talktalk-hacking-scandal-expert-reaction/
http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/talktalk-hacking-scandal-solihull-mum-10325550