You Are Not a Digital Native: Privacy in the Age of the Internet

Cory Doctorow tries to wake young people up to the realities of an online world controlled by companies that are hungry for your personal data.

Facebook is a company whose business model is based on the idea that if they spy on you enough and trick you into revealing enough about your life, they can sell you stuff through targeted ads. When they get called on this, they explain that because kids end up revealing so much about their personal lives on Facebook, it must be OK, because digital natives know how the Internet is supposed to be used. And when kids get a little older and start to regret their Facebook disclosures, they are told that they, too, just don’t understand what it means to be a digital native, because they’ve grown up and lost touch with the Internet’s true spirit. —Cory Doctorow.