When I first noticed that Missing Sarah was on the syllabus I was pleased.  While I had not read the memoir yet, I had heard of it and knew that It was on a topic that had struck a chord with me in the past.  I have lived in Vancouver for almost 10 years and in recent years have started to try and unpack how I feel about issues in the downtown east side.  As most people who live in Vancouver know, these issues are important, undeniable and severe.  The marginalization of women in the downtown east side (especially sex workers) has started to get the much needed recognition it deserves,  as organizations and families of the missing woman told their stories.  In the past year, I have been closely following the ways in which many people and sex workers in Vancouver have fought against the laws that have promoted unnecessarily dangerous conditions for women.  I thought that sharing some of this information would not only enrich your reading experience of Missing Sarah, but also create a different dialogue about sex work- something that is a very controversial topic.

Pivot Legal Society is a group of lawyers and workers in Vancouver who have helped sex workers fight against certain laws.  These laws do not make prostitution illegal in Canada, but create a very harmful environment for downtown east side sex workers.  On December 20th 2013, three of these laws were successfully struck down by the Canada’s highest court based on the fact that they violated parts of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.  The three laws that were struck down can be seen in detail here.  A very informative short documentary made by Vancouver filmmakers called Voices Of Dignity follows a handful of lawyers and sex workers to Ottawa in hopes of having these laws changed.  If you are interested in this topic and have 15 minutes to spare, I highly suggest watching it here.

On December 20th, when the laws were struck down, it was a huge victory for Canadian sex workers, especially because they were fighting against our relatively conservative government.   This summer our federal Conservative government proposed Bill-C-36, a bill that criminalizes sex work and possibly makes things more dangerous than they were before.  While sex work is a controversial topic, one thing that I feel is important is to realize that these new laws are denying sex workers their human rights.  The laws that have been in place in the past, and are being proposed now, foster violence against women.  The memoir of Sarah allows for us to understand that we need to solve these issues.  My hope is that Canada can be a progressive and forward thinking country and care enough to protect the women who live here.

This week’s learning module made me reflect on issues of privacy and advertising in relation to the internet. While privacy on Facebook has been an ongoing topic since Facebook first emerged, it is shifting in a way that I think is being marketed as a positive aspect of the site. On my newsfeed as well as on Facebook’s newsfeed, I recently noticed many little videos about your ability as a user to have a more customized Facebook experience based on your Facebook use. What is being advertised to you is specifically selected based on google searches , and who and what shows up on your newsfeed is not random or accidental. While Facebook markets this as a unique and beneficial attribute, I think that these algorithms are in a sense disrupting privacy. The “Filter Bubbles” Ted talk showed how this is not only an issue of Facebook, but on other websites as well. It is problematic to have algorithms decide for us what we want and don’t want to. As Eli Pariser discusses, it not only limits our potential experiences, but can influence the truth of what we see.

After watching “Filter Bubbles” I was reminded of an article that I stumbled upon a few years ago that showed how accurate data-mining can be. When you go to Safeway or Shoppers Drug Mart and you use your rewards card, you aren’t necessarily thinking of it as a privacy issue (especially because you are doing it willingly and getting a deal). It is this article in Forbes that gives an interesting view on privacy and shopping : http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-target-figured-out-a-teen-girl-was-pregnant-before-her-father-did/

A teen’s pregnancy was outed to her father due to Target sending her maternity coupons in the mail. Based on her other purchases, Target was able to correctly predict that she was pregnant. While data-mining can be convenient in other shopping situations, this story shows the repercussions of such hidden advertising tactics.

The other issue that I hold with Facebook and other online news sources is that many of the ads are native ads (ads that are sponsored by companies that often carry biased information). While I feel that native ads are a price that we pay to use Facebook (it is free, therefore I understand the need for advertising), I think that native ads can be problematic when people do not understand that they are sponsored. If you are new to the concept of native advertising (as I am) here is an explanation given by John Oliver that is pretty easy to watch: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=E_F5GxCwizc

While I enjoy using Facebook to connect with friends and family, as well as using web based sources to get my daily news, I do think that things are changing, and that as internet users it is our responsibility to understand how and why we are being fed certain information. It not only affects our privacy but the accuracy of our incoming information.

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