問題詳情

Enough “meaningless drivel”. That’s the message from a group of members of the UKgovernment who have been examining how social media firms like LinkedIn gather and usesocial media data.The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee’s report, released last week,has blamed firms for making people sign up to long incomprehensible legal contracts and callsfor an international standard or kitemark to identify sites that have clear terms andconditions.“The term and conditions statement that we all carelessly agree to is meaningless drivel toanyone,” says Andrew Miller, the chair of the committee. Instead, he says, firms should providea plain-English version of their terms. The simplified version would be checked by a thirdparty and awarded a kitemark if it is an accurate reflection of the original.It is not yet clear who would administer the scheme, but the UK government is looking atintroducing it on a voluntary basis. “we need to think through how we make that work in6practice,” says Miller.Would we pay any more attention to a kitemark? “I think if you went and did the survey,people would like to think they would,” says Nigel Shadbolt at the University of Southampton,UK, who studies open data. “We do know people worry a lot about the inappropriate use oftheir information.” But what would happen in practice is another matter, he says.Other organisations such as banks ask customers to sign long contracts they may not reador understand, but Miller believes social media requires special attention because it is so new.“We still don’t know how significant the long-term impact is going to be of unwise things thatkids put on social media that come back and bite them in 20 years’ time,” he says.Shadbolt, who gave evidence to the committee, says the problem is that we don’t knowhow companies will use our data because their business models and uses of data are stillevolving. Large collections of personal information have become valuable only recently, hesays.The shock and anger when a social media firm does something with data that people don’texpect, even if users have apparently permission, show that the current situation isn’t working.If properly administered, a kitemark on terms and conditions could help people know whatexactly they are signing up to. Although they would still have to actually read them.
51. What does the phrase “ meaningless drivel” in paragraphs 1 and 3 refer to?
(A) Legal contracts that social media firms make people sign up to.
(B) Warnings from the UK government against unsafe websites.
(C) Guidelines on how to use social media websites properly.
(D) Insignificant data collected by social media firms.

參考答案

答案：A
難度：適中0.5
統計：A(0),B(0),C(0),D(0),E(0)

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