We all like to know what others might be thinking about us, but people may not express their comments directly thinking it might be inappropriate. Then a company, or few companies in fact, came up with “solutions” to this issue by creating platforms that allow anyone to comment on their users anonymously.
Among them SayAt.me was a site that grew their presence among social media users in a short period of time. Therefore, in our first article after a break we are going to dive into the privacy practices of SayAt.me and create some awareness about this site.
One of the main “features” of this service is the “anonymity” (At least in terms of personal name) that they provide to individuals who visit a user profile and comment on a user. Furthermore, they have developed their website as a directory for social media users where some information such as Social Media name, photos and number of followers of the registered users are displayed on the site itself. This might make the site look like a meta-search engine for social media users, especially for the “influencers”.
So, what is the basic idea of the site? It is a site to provide comments of “feedback” on questions or polls without revealing your identity. As the company states “The Website is a feedback tool meant to gather honest and constructive feedback from friends, colleagues, acquaintances or others”.
It does seem obvious that the “feedback” will not always be positive or ethical, as the anonymity the site provides can lead people to criticize or even blame others without any real reason behind. Therefore, the company has a major issue of being seen notorious for cyber bullying and hate speech.
What does SayAt.Me terms and conditions say about this possible issue? The company has “developed artificial intelligence to help prevent bullying messages being posted”, and they have blocked some words entirely from the site. Similar to the blurred stories on Instagram for sensitive content, SayAt.me will also visually block comments that they think are abusive or unethical.
However, at the end of the day the company will not have any liability over the possible cyber bullying issues, but anyone who “originated” the content will be held responsible.
“SayAt.me does not have an obligation to monitor or control the User Content in order to discover any unlawful nature therein, and will not take responsibility for it.”
So, what are the kind of personal data that the site uses? Other than details such as username, password and email, they will also use social media ID and the relevant profile picture based on the website you sign up with. All the User Content you create on the website will also be collected, which includes questions, feedback posts, comments, polls and photos that you post to the Website.
Is that all? Well, just like other sites they will use cookies to track details such as your IP Address, referring URLs and actions on the website which can be used to trace your movement across the internet and different sites. (Not so anonymous after all is it?)
And for what use? Other than for providing and maintaining their service, they will also provide your data to their “advertising partners” to show you an ad about the shoe that you just searched but did not buy. It might haunt you for some time!
So, are there no good practices at all? There are. Due to having their operations in the EU region, in Estonia, SayAt.me mentions that they follow GDPR practices which ensure better data privacy and rights. This is one good privacy practice of the company and they require their partner companies or other service providers to follow GDPR as well.
“We remain responsible for your personal data and take all necessary measures to protect your personal data as provided herein.”
Furthermore, the company grants the users number of rights such as;
- the right of access to personal data held
- the right to amend and rectify any inaccuracies in personal data held
- the right to erase personal data held
- the right to data portability of personal data held
What if you feel like you received enough “constructive criticism” and you need to leave the site? Your profile and what you have posted such as your photos will be deleted automatically, but not the public or anonymous feedback and comments that were sent from your account. The latter, you will have to do manually before deleting the account. As per the statement, personal data may be retained with the company as long as for 10 years.
What is the takeaway message?
This personal dashboard (slash) social media site has mixed results when it comes to privacy and more importantly cyber bullying and hate speech issues. Hence it is important to understand the possibility of malpractices arising from using the site and to know what you can do in order to take actions against it.
P.S: – After all, there are better sources that you can look to receive “constructive criticism” than total strangers on the internet whom you don’t know exists at all.
Written by: Rtr. Ashen Hirantha
Edited by: Rtr. Kalani Siriwardena
Editor
Editor