Muckrakers Anonymous Presents: Ethical Data Privacy Mini-Series

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Hello everyone and welcome back to muckrakers Anonymous, where they strategically inclined gather to rake up all the muck produced by our digitally inclined society during this many series, we’ll be focusing on the ethical implications of data tracking on the web. But before we dive in to all the digital jargon.

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I thought it was important for us to check the pulse on how Americans are viewing data privacy. Currently, I’ll be using the Pew Research Centers report titled how Americans View Data privacy throughout this podcast. This report reveals that there is a growing unease among Americans.

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About how exactly their personal data is being collected, used and ever so often exploited. So what’s behind all of this digital distrust and what are the ethical implications of tracking our every move online? That’s why I’m here to unpack this. Start out with the digital discomfort. I’m sure we’ve all been there where we’re browsing the Internet.

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We’re very specific product and all of a sudden that products ads starts following you around every app website and now even televi.

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Vision show that you’re watching and you’re not alone here. According to pews, 2023 survey over 81% of Americans are concerned about how companies are currently using their data, and this is not just for companies. There’s still 71% that feel the same exact way about the government using our data. But what’s the most interesting about this situation?

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Because most people also feel they have little to no control over what happens to the data. So why is this happening and why do people feel stuck?

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I personally can only see this as a lack of awareness and education on the matter which this survey proves, because 2/3 of Americans say they don’t even understand what companies are doing with their information, and this is not just a tech problem, it’s an overall ethical 1. The ethics comes in when we’re talking about consent, specifically informed consent.

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So you know those privacy policies that pop up on pretty much everything we download, click on and use well, those really long, heavily jargon filled documents are actually us giving away our consent. And the survey showed that 56% of Americans are frequently agreeing to privacy policies without even reading them.

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And that number only goes up the more tech savvy and educated you are. I can only assume this happens because you feel you could handle anything that comes your way after clicking that agree button where those who may be a little more nervous around technology really want to sift through all that information. Now the ethical question can consent be considered?

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Valid if it’s uninformed. If users don’t understand what they’re agreeing to or feel they really have no choice, because as we know, most of the time, if you do not agree to these policies, you cannot continue to use.

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What you’re searching for is that considered consent, or does that now turn to coercion? Companies have a responsibility to make privacy policies accessible and transparent. Otherwise it’s not just simply collecting data, they’re also eroding the user’s trust.

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Now forget about just privacy policies. That’s just words on paper. That shouldn’t be too technologically challenging. So what if we add artificial intelligence to the mix? Well, among those familiar with AI, 81% believe it will lead to their personal information being used in ways.

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They are definitely not comfortable with and 80% think it will be used in ways that weren’t originally intended. This isn’t just about targeting ads anymore, it’s about predictive policing, algorithmic bias and surveillance capitalism. When AI systems are trained on personal data, the stakes get higher and the ethical lines blur.

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Who’s accountable when AI makes a decision based on your data and what happens when the decision is wrong? This is not just a concern for the older generations who might not be as tech savvy or those of us between millennial and an older.

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Gen. Z, who have grown up with this type of technology and feel we have the knowledge to defeat it at any cost. There are also concerns that extends to the youngest users of the Internet. A staggering 89% of Americans are worried about social media platforms collecting data on children. Yet most of the responsibility is still placed.

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On parents, not tech companies or regulators, this highlights a broader issue.

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So the imbalance of power users, especially vulnerable ones, are expected to navigate complex systems to protect their privacy. While companies profit from their confusion, ethically, this is a call of action. Regulation isn’t just policy debate. It’s immoral. Imperative regulation isn’t just a policy debate, it’s a moral need.

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So what can we do? Where do we go first? It’s to become aware and.

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Educated the more people understand about data privacy, the more likely they are to take protective actions. But knowledge alone isn’t enough. This is when regulations are important, something that tends to take a lot longer in the Internet and digital space. Some 72% of Americans support.

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These regulations, which to get over 50% of America to agree on anything and including the word regulation, should tell you something about how we feel as a collective. We need companies to prioritize ethical.

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Line and we need to shift the burden of privacy protection from the individuals to institutions we already know there’s a wide spectrum of education on the topic across the nation, if not the world. When is there enough proof that the average American doesn’t fully comprehend what they’re agreeing to? And when does that weigh enough to shift?

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The responsibility on to the companies, because privacy isn’t just a personal preference, it should be a public good and a personal right. So we’ll close here for today on our first mini episode around data try.

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Yes.

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Looking where we specifically store how Americans are feeling and does that relate to how you feel? Do those numbers seem accurate? Not everyone goes out of their way to get multiple communication degrees 1 specifically in strategy and who works in the field. So as someone who has been getting more and more educated around this topic the last.

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5 plus years, I can say the education and awareness works. Your fear goes down as you learn more and you learn how to control the spaces you’re in. I hope you found this conversation valuable until next time. Stay strategic and stay private.

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Hello everyone and welcome back to muckrakers anonymous. This is the podcast where the strategically inclined come together and rake up all the muck that has been left from our very digital society. In this miniseries, we’re continuing to decode the ethics of emerging tech. I’m your host.

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Jaiden Molyneux. And today, we’re going to be diving in to the evolving world of AI governance in 2020.

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Five and what this means for you, your data, and your privacy, and hopefully we can trust the digital world as these AI systems become more powerful and self regulating. The question isn’t just what can they do? It’s well who’s keeping them in check and more importantly, how is your data being used in this process?

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Let’s start off with the governance gap. AI governance is no longer some theoretical debate. That kind of sounds like it’s from a sci-fi movie. It’s a.

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Global well scramble with the EU AI act, setting the tone with hefty.

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And the US is still navigating their state level laws around AI companies are really caught in a maze of regulation. How far should they go? How much and who is this gonna affect? But here’s the ethical twist. While governments debate all these different frameworks and how they should regulate the.

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AI system along with us, our data is still being.

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Selected, analyzed, and monetized. There’s not just a pause button on this, often without your full understanding or.

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Within this episode, I will be using the Forbes article AI governance in 2025. Extra predictions on ethics, tech and law, Forbes quotes Alexandra Robinson from Steampunk Inc, who says?

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That we need to move from extractive AI compliance to effective engagement. So that means not just checking off boxes on some regulatory sheet, but actually protecting these people by these people. It’s the average person us well AI may have seen like it’s been coming on the horizon.

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For years, I mean starting off with our good old lady Siri, she seems pretty archaic now that we have Chad, GBT and copilot, and on and on and on. And.

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One but one of the biggest shifts in 2025 is the rise of agentic AI. These systems can plan and act on their own based on your goals, you might have heard this as your AI assistant. This sounds super efficient, right? But here’s the ethical dilemma. If an AI agent makes a decision.

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Using your data, who’s responsible if something goes wrong?

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You, the developer, the company well, Jose Bello from the IAP warns that these systems raise a lot of questions about leaving these systems autonomous and putting in safeguards. And with AI agents potentially replacing mass amounts of human workers, the stakes are higher than ever. AI governance.

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Used to just be a small side conversation about ethics and what could possibly have.

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Then if AI got this big, however, now it’s a core business function. Giovanni Leoni from Accenture calls it a change of management journey. So we are currently seeing that there are companies that are embedding responsible AI into their workflows and they use these tools to monitor the AI and.

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Audit it and its behavior in real time. However, just because we kind of coded ethics into the physical AI doesn’t mean that it’s completely solved. It means we need to be more vigilant about how data is collected, stored, and used.

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The whole, especially when AI systems are making decisions that affect real people. Now, with all this talk around AI, we cannot forget the environmental footprint of AI training models. This large requires massive energy and storing endless data, much of it personal, and this all adds to the load.

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Experts argue that ethical AI must also be sustainable. That means designing energy efficient systems using greener data centers and even decommissioning AI tools that are no longer.

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Did like remember to shut the lights off when you leave the house kind of vibe. It’s a reminder that data tracking isn’t just a privacy issue, it’s also a planetary 1. So what drives this progress? What is going to make people think more ethically about AI, especially very large, multimillion billion dollar companies?

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Well, besides companies just out of the kindness of their heart, investing into these types of sustainable systems, there will also be real world consequences. Most of coming from we the people. This is where reputational damage.

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Image and consumer pressure can really make an impact within the framework of crisis communication. We definitely talk about consumer pressure and reputation a lot and how much influence it can have over these brands, companies and even just society as a whole. This is why it is so important for all of us to become more educated.

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And aware on these processes so that we can step up and have something to say, not just complain.

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Or simply ignore it, so we need regular literacy, media literacy. Now we will add AI literacy to the never ending library shelf that is our society, because if people do not understand how their data is being used, they can’t demand for it to be better. I hope this didn’t scare you and I hope this gave you.

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Clarity on looking ahead that AI governance isn’t just about rules, it’s about values. Something we seem to misplace in a lot of our actions in the last.

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Decade, it’s about building systems that respect autonomy, protect privacy and serve the public good. So the next time you just click accept on data policy, ask yourself who’s really in control. That’s it for today’s mini episode, I hope you found this conversation insightful.

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And not too scary.

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And remember, ethical tech starts with informed users. So until next time, stay strategic and stay literate.

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Hello and welcome back to muckrakers Anonymous, where the strategically inclined gather to rake up all the muck that has come from our digital society. We are here on our last episode of our miniseries surrounding ethical implications of data tracking on the web. Just as a refresher, I exposed you to how Americans are currently.

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Dealing around data privacy.

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As well as giving you a look at where AI is going around, regulation, law and ethics. In this last episode I will be using a PowerPoint from my own personal advertising agency here in New York City. This content comes from our Viewpoint series and we’ll be diving into the world of this generative.

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AI and its growing role in media advertising and search from Microsoft’s copilot to Bing chat and beyond. AI is reshaping how we create, communicate, and most of all.

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Assume, but as we embrace this new era, we must also ask what are the ethical costs of convenience, especially when it comes to how our data is tracked and used? What are the ethical costs of convenience? We’ve seen this question pop up with the uptick in fast fashion over the last decade. If it’s more convenient.

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What else are we losing in that convent?

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And I think it’s very important to pay attention to this when it comes to how our personal data is being tracked and used, and myself as a media planner and strategist, that this isn’t just some tech trend, it’s a huge shift in how we approach our everyday way of work. So let’s unpack this. So AI is huge, and I don’t even know how to.

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Describe it in a way for you to comprehend. It’s not just some other tool in some digital toolbox. It’s being compared to the Internet, mobile phones and even electricity. It’s a whole being in itself.

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Why? Because it’s changing how we interact with technology and how technology interacts with us. It’s not just some new app with a new interesting way to scroll, so these are just huge impactful creations that completely shift the way we interact in our world. You heard me mention Microsoft’s copilot. It’s embedded within Windows, Bing.

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And Microsoft 365, it’s helping users write emails, edit photos, generate videos and even summarize their documents. What they’re promising saving time and boosting creativity. But here’s the thing. To do all of those actions, to do all of those.

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Asks AI needs data your data, your clients data, your audiences data, and that’s where the ethical questions begin. Because these are models and they need to work off of something to get you a result. So where does all this data come from? AI is not just some 2025, even 2024.

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Idea. For example Bing Chat launched in early 2023 and it has logged over a billion chaps and 750 million AI generated images. That is a lot of interaction and each one of those interact.

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Options are a bit of data, so that’s a lot of it. What’s fascinating is that 72% of the users come to Bing chat from Google, so that means people are actively searching for a new kind of search, one that feels more human, more helpful, more conversational. If you’re finding yourself getting more frustrated with just the simple.

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Google search or just simply even asking Siri?

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In comparison to apps like ChatGPT, Bing Chat, or Microsoft Copilot, the immediacy is unmatched and the rise of AI is making our Google searches feel like dial-up. And I’m sure that has zero benefit on our attention span. However, for me as a media strategist, this is a huge game changer search.

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Behavior is evolving. Keyword targeting alone won’t cut it. You now need to understand intent, contacts and conversation flow. But conversational AI doesn’t just answer questions.

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It learns from them. It tracks what users ask, how they ask it, and what they click next. This creates a more personalized experience, but also a more surveiled one. AI doesn’t just pick and choose what data it wants to save based on importance and learn from. So next time you want to look up a weird skin rash or submit some weird.

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Right.

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Just remember it is still learning from you.

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Well, how is this going into our advertising and how does this affect me as a planner? So let’s talk ADS. Generative AI is transforming advertising in real time. It’s almost like we can’t even keep up with it. Microsoft has introduced new formats like Multimedia Ads, shopping campaigns and even a compare and decide.

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Ad that summarizes product options in the chat friendly table for U.S. media planners, this means we have to rethink how campaigns for our clients, which are just different brands, are structured. It’s not just.

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It’s about placement anymore. It’s about prompts, it’s about responses and dynamic content. This personally excites me more because that means you just have to understand human interaction, storytelling, context, all these great words that we did learn in our time at university and less reliant on just the numbers and percentages.

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That are spit out from the data. You really have to learn people and figure out what they want and AI actually helps us with that. At the same time by giving us all this intricate specific contextual.

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Data on beings and people for our audiences. Everyday interactions, but does that seem creepy? Does that seem weird that I’m studying people’s interactions constantly? Well, here’s are the ethical dilemma lies because these ads are dynamically generated based on this user behavior.

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So I’m looking through search histories, click patterns and even inferred preferences. The line between helpful and manipulative is very thin.

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Especially when AI is optimizing for engagement, not ethics. This is something I often think about while I work. Luckily, my current agency does take into account ethical considerations of data use. However, this is not the case for everybody. So as a strategist, how do you balance performance with privacy, and how do you ensure your campaigns are effective without being?

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Exploitive. Well, Microsoft says it’s democratizing.

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AI it’s making it accessible to everyone and in many ways that is true. Tools like copilot help users write better code faster and create more. But let’s not forget these tools are also monetizing off of us, the audience, our attention, every interaction, and every second we give to them is another data point every prompt.

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Is a signal and every click is currency for agency.

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This means more data to work with, but also more responsibility. Are we using this data to serve the user or to serve the algorithm for my final project here at SUNY Oswego? One of the things I did was interview my current CEO and this is something I definitely highlighted to him over and over again. He diffused my concern.

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By assuring that that is one of the top points for our legal team, since really the development of data points, I mean our slogan literally is for the people. So all this tells me is that it is doable and it is.

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Possible. And there are people that care. So the more we learn about it and the more we demand it, the more we benefit. I will give Microsoft credit. They’ve outlined principles for responsible AI and fairness, reliability, transparency, privacy, accountability, and inclusion. But principles aren’t.

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C’s I know it may be confusing because they both start with a P but don’t get it confused because principals can’t always be enforced and nowadays rarely policies. As media professionals, we’re not just campaign managers, we’re the gatekeepers of trust. We need to ask these hard questions about the platforms we use, the partners we work with.

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The data we collect and the experiences we create for our mass audiences, because the future of media isn’t just about reach and frequency equations, it’s about relevance, responsibility and overall respect. While working on this mini series, I actually asked my current VP.

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Of my team, if our agency is.

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Currently vetting AI programs that we’re interacting with for their sustainability and their ethical background and mind you, I’m at a very progressive agency. He was able to send me a few links to some partners that they were looking at and specifically like I mentioned in the last episode, they were kind of AI.

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That was able to be embedded to manage and audit and track AI responsibility and sustainability, but he personally said that.

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UM.

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He’s only really heard hums of this conversation, and it hasn’t really come down the pipeline to him. If there are bigger conversations about this, but.

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He also doesn’t doubt that this is something that will be on our forefront.

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If not in 252025, most likely 2026. So it is relieving to hear that there are massive companies thinking about this is how you have to think about this is I work for a big media agency and we have a bunch of.

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Clients that are a bunch of different brands that you guys interact with every single day. So if we’re being ethical and thoughtful in our processes, that will then trickle down to the brands for the most part in what we can control, which is analyzing and targeting their audience. So this is all to say that AI is here. It’s powerful.

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It’s promising and it is most definitely personal, but as we all know, with great power comes great responsibility, and that includes how we track, store and use our data. I will definitely ask myself next time I’m building a media plan, are we building for?

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Trust or just buying time? That’s it. Here for my mini series around ethical implications of data tracking and privacy. I hope you guys found this series valuable and you will take this information with you going forward. I’m not telling you to stop interacting with digital spaces or AI.

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Or the new tech that is coming out. I’m asking you to be strategic. I’m asking you to evaluate and make sure those you are interacting with are proving to you a consumer who they’re taking a lot from, why they respect and consider your privacy until next time. Stay strategic.