Google China. Wikicommons/ Fan Yang. Some rights reserved.Internet giants Google, Twitter and Facebook were recently subjected to a compliance test by the Open Technology Institute's Ranking Digital Rights initiative. Cynics will not be surprised to hear that these companies all received failing grades when evaluated on user privacy and data security practices. In a world that has absorbed Edward Snowden's revelations on the NSA's snooping on private communications, with the alleged collaboration of the largest internet platforms, we can expect such cynics to be many.
What's really surprising here is how little we have come to expect from these companies who once positioned themselves as champions of a "...more open and connected world", to cite Facebook's mission statement. One might also wonder how these brands feel about such repeated slights to their image. When it comes to helping or hindering human rights across the world, does reputation still matter to the leading social networks? Or have they, perhaps, simply grown too big to care?
