Opinion
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
4A — Monday, April 9, 2018

Emma Chang
Joel Danilewitz

Samantha Goldstein

Elena Hubbell
Emily Huhman
Tara Jayaram

Jeremy Kaplan

Sarah Khan

Lucas Maiman

Magdalena Mihaylova

Ellery Rosenzweig

Jason Rowland

Anu Roy-Chaudhury

Alex Satola
Ali Safawi

 Ashley Zhang
Sam Weinberger

DAYTON HARE

Managing Editor

420 Maynard St. 

Ann Arbor, MI 48109

 tothedaily@michigandaily.com

Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890.

ALEXA ST. JOHN

Editor in Chief

 ANU ROY-CHAUDHURY AND 

ASHLEY ZHANG
Editorial Page Editors

Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of the Daily’s Editorial Board. 

All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors.

EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS

Better safe than sorry

MATTHEW FRIEND | COLUMN

HANK MINOR | COLUMN

A

pril 
is 
Testicular 

Cancer 
Awareness 

Month. 
I 
assume 

this is new information for 
most individuals reading this 
column. In fact, I only became 
aware 
of 
this 
information 

because, a little over a month 
ago, I was diagnosed with Stage 
I testicular cancer. Now, not 
that there’s ever a “good” type 
of cancer, but as far as these 
situations go, this was pretty 
positive news. It meant the 
cancer had not spread and I 
would be able to have surgery 
the next day to completely 
remove the tumor. The surgery 
was successful and, according 
to the doctors, my brief fight 
with cancer was likely over.

I was incredibly lucky to 

have caught the tumor so early 
on; I was in the hospital for 
an unrelated injury (falling on 
hard ice during a broomball 
tournament) when they found 
the cancerous mass during 
an ultrasound. I was lucky 
I 
lived 
only 
five 
minutes 

away from the University of 
Michigan hospital, an excellent 
medical facility filled with 
even more excellent medical 
professionals. I was lucky the 
doctors and nurses asked the 
right 
questions, 
performed 

the right tests and decided 
to 
perform 
more 
in-depth 

examinations than they needed. 
I was lucky they found the 
tumor before it had spread, and 
that I didn’t need to go through 
chemotherapy or radiation.

I am writing this article 

because I am fully aware of 
how incredibly lucky I was; 
most people don’t just stumble 
upon a tumor, especially before 
their condition becomes more 
serious. In the weeks following 
this ordeal, I’ve learned a 
ton about testicular cancer, 
including 
information 
that 

would provide other young men 
the ability to identify if they 
are at risk for the disease and 
should go see a doctor without 
needing to rely on luck (or an 
accidental trip to the hospital).

Of the many interesting 

facts I learned about testicular 
cancer, the most striking to me 
was that it is the most common 
form of cancer among young 
men, with most individuals 
diagnosed between the ages 
of 15-35. I can only speak 

for myself, but cancer was 
certainly not on my radar a 
month ago, or really any other 
life-threatening diseases for 
that matter. I was a healthy, 
21-year-old student, and there 
wasn’t much in my life that a 
few ibuprofen and some duct 
tape couldn’t fix.

In talking with my male 

friends after this experience, 
I’ve found nearly all of them 
share 
a 
similar 
mindset. 

Testicular 
cancer 
is 
not 

something they actively think 
about or are routinely checking 
for. 
Though 
the 
self-check 

process that leads to early 
identification of a tumor is 
relatively quick and simple, 
almost none had ever examined 
themselves. In fact, many did 
not even know how to perform 
the procedure in the first place 
(full disclosure, neither did I 
until recently).

So what can we do about this? 

How can we make sure men are 
able to identify this disease early 
on and seek proper treatment, 
rather than leaving it up to 
chance like I had?

Well first off, if you’re a young 

man, do yourself a favor and learn 
how to perform a self-check. This 
can lead to early detections and 
an increased likelihood that if you 
do happen to discover a tumor, 
immediate action can be taken 
before more intensive care is 
needed and risks become higher.

Have 
the 
conversation 

with 
your 
peers 
and 
help 

destigmatize what is admittedly 
an uncomfortable topic. Yes, I 
still chuckle at the word “testicle” 
(because it’s funny, even at 21 
years old), but there is nothing 
unnatural 
or 
unmasculine 

about discussing your health 
and helping to create awareness 
regarding a topic that affects 
more of your peers than you 
might think. Talking with friends 
and family over the past few 
weeks, I have found out several 
men in my life have successfully 
fought testicular cancer, and yet 
there is still something taboo 
whenever the topic is brought up.

Perhaps the most important 

lesson I’ve learned is to listen to 
your body and err on the side of 
caution when deciding whether 
to see a medical professional. 
I believe this lesson applies to 
many issues beyond testicular 
cancer, whether it be that 

nagging cough that won’t go 
away or a weird bump that 
wasn’t there previously. While 
our days may often feel so 
busy and hectic that we can 
barely find time to eat lunch, 
let alone go to the doctor, it 
is important to make time for 
your health. Even if you do go to 
the emergency room, wait two 
hours to get admitted and spend 
another hour getting checked 
out only to receive a healthy 
verdict, please don’t feel as if 
you wasted your time. You just 
received confirmation that you 
are in fact healthy, and can sleep 
well at night knowing this. On 
the off-chance there is in fact 
something wrong, you can go 
ahead and get treatment before 
your situation escalates. While 
ignorance may be bliss in some 
instances, not being aware of a 
health issue doesn’t guarantee 
its nonexistence. 

I 
never 
thought 
I’d 
be 

having this conversation, let 
alone writing a column about 
my experience with testicular 
cancer. A month ago, I was 
lying in a bed in the hallway 
of the U-M hospital, listening 
to a doctor say a stream of 
words I can barely recall, 
feeling a combination of scared, 
confused and, perhaps most of 
all, powerless. Fortunately, I get 
to tell the story of an extremely 
blessed case of early detection 
and treatment. While I hope 
no one reading my column 
experiences this illness, I hope 
that if you do, you are able to 
find out early and on your own 
terms. That you can have the 
conversation with friends and 
share your story, knowing you 
are not alone in dealing with 
this. By talking about testicular 
cancer, or any health issues for 
that matter, we can better share 
information about detection, 
providing more individuals the 
opportunity to feel in control of 
their futures.

For more information and 

resources about the disease, I 
highly recommend checking 
out the Movember Foundation, 
a men’s health non-profit that 
is doing amazing work to raise 
funds 
and 
share 
resources 

about this disease, as well as 
other men’s health issues.

Matthew Friend can be reached 

at mjfri@umich.edu.

Empathy without action

T

he unpaid — or barely 
paid 
— 
internship 

remains instrumental 

in 
accelerating 
the 
career 

trajectories of a lot of U.S. 
college students, especially 
for careers in government, 
journalism and law. In a piece 
for the New York Times, 
Darren Walker writes, “Talent 
is equally distributed, but 
opportunity is not.” I think 
this gets at the root of our 
problem: There are thousands 
of 
talented 
students 
who 

can’t compete on the same 
level as their peers for purely 
financial reasons.

Sure, 
there 
have 
been 

attempts to remedy this — 
using social media to shame 
companies into paying their 
interns, grants from well-
funded universities, programs 
that 
mitigate 
impossible 

costs — but many times, these 
endeavors only paint a sense 
of fairness over a system that 
remains 
thoroughly 
unfair. 

This is reinforced by guilty, 
empathetic op-eds in campus 
newspapers — I won’t link 
anyone, 
in 
particular, 
to 

be polite — that stress how 
much it hurts for advantaged 
students 
to 
enjoy 
their 

internships knowing that the 
pool of competitors has been 
reduced by financial factors.

It’s not enough just to feel 

bad, as anyone who’s been 
involved with minority group 
activism likely knows; people 

with structural power need 

to use their positions to level 
the field behind them. A 
pre-law student expressing 
his or her regret about the 
typical road to a law career 
will soon enough be a lawyer, 
and — given the University 
of 
Michigan’s 
placement 

rates — maybe even one with 
extraordinary resources. Will 

this 
undergraduate’s 
guilt 

translate into postgraduate 
action?

The goal isn’t, of course, to 

tear down current advantages 
so that everyone faces the same 
difficult route forward; it’s to 
correct 
former 
inequalities 

such that talent as a factor 
increases as much as possible. 
I don’t want to condemn people 
for taking fair opportunities 
that are distributed unfairly, 
but I do want to make sure 
that we don’t reinforce the 
status quo because it’s easier 
to resolve one’s guilt than to 
resolve the problem.

There are certain careers 

worked unequally by various 
groups in American society. 
The factors that cause these 
variations are complex. The 
proportion 
of 
women 
in 

finance, for example, probably 
isn’t 
because 
of 
disparate 

household 
resources, 
but 

likely economic accessibility 
to the career path.

It’s 
(apparently) 
easy 

enough to find talent that 
can afford to advertise itself 
and has the resources for 
an unpaid internship in an 
expensive 
city 
or 
enough 

money for a summer spent 
on volunteer work instead of 
wage labor. What this means, 
though, is that we effectively 
limit access to certain career 

ladders, so to speak, by a 
child’s or young adult’s access 
to financial resources.

Our goal in minimizing this 

effect should be increasing 
competition, 
regardless 
of 

someone’s 
financial 
ability. 

When we define elite industries, 
it should be by the rigor of 
competition required to obtain 
those positions and the talent 
required to keep them, not the 
social and economic class of a 
typical worker.

Maybe 
some 
hesitancy 

around this comes from our 
complicated 
relationship 

with 
the 
concept 
of 

“deserving.” 
What 
comes 

with this, though, should be a 
recognition that all students 
deserve 
an 
otherwise 

provided 
opportunity 
to 

compete on the same level. 
If the end result of this is 
that 
some 
candidates 
— 

who would have previously 
gotten through on structural 
advantages — are eliminated 
from 
contention 
for 

prestigious jobs, so be it.

The impressive fact about 

U-M graduates is that many 
will 
rise 
to 
positions 
of 

financial, legal, journalistic 
and political power. If you’re 
among them, remember to pay 
your interns, when you have 
them. Consider housing costs 
when you recruit students 
who are compensated with 
only with the prestige of your 
organization. Remind yourself 
how important luck is in 
everyone’s success, and of the 
breaks that you’ve personally 
received. 
Remember 
how 

much you empathized, when 
you actually get the chance to 
turn your emotion into action.

It 
goes 
without 
saying 

that Cambridge Analytica’s 
collection of private data from 
tens of millions of Facebook 
users 
for 
“psychographic 

modeling” in recent American 
elections was an egregious 
violation 
of 
privacy. 
Only 

about 
270,000 
Facebook 

users 
participated 
in 
an 

original personality survey 
and consented to having data 
collected. Their information 
was then turned over, along 
with the profiles of another 87 
million users unaware of the 
academic study, to Cambridge 
Analytica.

However, 
for 
today’s 

children, 
adolescents 
and 

college students — all of 
whom were raised in or born 
into a post-9/11 surveillance 
state — personal privacy has 
always been accompanied by 
an asterisk, and control over 
personal 
information 
has 

always been understood as a 
compromise. This has resulted 
in a sort of normalized apathy, 
an immunizing agent to the 
magnitude of such privacy 
violations as Facebook’s. As 
technology continues to play 
a larger role in our everyday 
life, we, The Michigan Daily 
Editorial 
Board, 
call 
on 

college students in particular 
to better realize how personal 
data 
collection 
impacts 

large-scale 
inequalities 

and 
democratic 
processes 

throughout society.

The 
current 
case 

constitutes an example of 
such. As a firm largely owned 
by conservative mega-donor 
Robert Mercer and partially 
run by board member Steve 
Bannon, the Breitbart mogul 
and 
a 
former 
adviser 
to 

President 
Donald 
Trump, 

Cambridge Analytica used its 
data and election-influencing 
experience in its work for 
Trump’s 
2016 
presidential 

campaign. 
Remaining 

apathetic about the use of 
collected 
data 
for 
purely 

commercial purposes is one 
thing, but the construction 
of 
politically 
influential 

data 
collection 
systems 
is 

another entirely. In failing 
to adequately protect user 
privacy, which comes on the 

heels of its acknowledged 
role 
in 
spreading 
Russian 

propaganda leading up to the 
2016 
presidential 
election, 

Facebook 
is 
complicit 
in 

Cambridge 
Analytica’s 

extralegal attempt to influence 
democratic 
processes. 
This 

scandal 
now 
joins 
other 

numerous 
instances 
of 

malfeasance 
by 
big 
data 

systems, which have been 
shown to adopt and reinforce 
societal biases and perpetuate 
existing inequalities.

As much as the Facebook 

case 
demonstrates 
the 

widespread 
and 
significant 

consequences 
of 
privacy 

violations, it also reveals the 
extent 
to 
which 
activities 

like 
this 
are 
largely 
left 

unaddressed. Limitations on 
data collection for the sake 
of online privacy have, as of 
now, failed to materialize in 
Congress. However, we must 
keep in mind that alternative 
paths are simply not viable. 
Despite possible drawbacks 
to targeted advertising, its 
centrality 
to 
the 
modern 

technology industry ensures 
it 
will 
remain 
monetarily 

incentivized 
as 
long 
as 

profits 
outnumber 
any 

user 
discomfort 
it 
causes. 

Additionally, the recent calls to 
#DeleteFacebook demonstrate 
a severe underestimation of 
the platform’s utter ubiquity. 
For instance, many business 
owners depend on Facebook 
to communicate effectively, 
damaging the credibility of 
any mass deletion campaign.

Indeed, direct government 

regulation 
and 
constraint 

of companies that harness 
and 
sell 
users’ 
personal 

information 
is 
the 
only 

sensible path. For a company 

that just revealed additional, 
severe vulnerabilities in most 
users’ profiles, Facebook (and 
tech mega-firms like it) have 
so far enjoyed relatively little 
oversight. We no longer have 
to ponder the hypothetical 
consequences 
of 
such 
an 

arrangement: 
Cambridge 

Analytica’s 
unscrupulous 

handling of Facebook user 
data dismantles the notion 
that any company built on 
selling consumer data can — 
or rather, will — prioritize 
user 
privacy 
and 
enforce 

such provisions, so long as their 
service remains monetarily free.

Moreover, the foundation 

is 
already 
in 
place 
for 

government to take action: 
A 
majority 
of 
Internet 

users 
find 
targeted 
ads 

distasteful, 
pointing 
to 
a 

need for legislation similar 
to 
the 
European 
Union’s 

soon-to-be enacted General 
Data Protection Regulation. 
As current alternatives for 
maintaining privacy remain 
laborious and esoteric, we 
must 
keep 
in 
mind 
that 

progressive governance has 
routinely shifted the onus of 
protection from the consumer 
to the producer (think: the 
FDA, EPA, etc.). Therefore, 
we at the Editorial Board call 
on Americans to push their 
elected representatives to pass 
meaningful legislation limiting 
technology companies.

Treating 
online 

advertisements 
like 
TV 

advertisements, 
where 

sponsors 
must 
be 
openly 

disclosed, is a good start to 
increased transparency, as are 
requirements that consumer 
information not be collected 
beyond what is necessary for 
the service provided. Angry 
Facebook users would be wise 
to channel their dissatisfaction 
toward their local and state 
representatives 
and, 
in 
so 

doing, make online privacy 
rights a fundamental platform 
issue. Through this kind of 
democratic activism, we as 
Internet users and citizens can 
take back ground in the fight 
for online privacy and put a 
halt to mass manipulation of 
our personal data.

For today’s college 
students privacy 
has always been 
accompanied by 

an asterisk.

FROM THE DAILY

We cannot be apathetic about Facebook
M

ore than two weeks after Facebook’s massive data leak of user 
information to voting analytics firm Cambridge Analytica was 
first exposed, new revelations on the extent of the tech titan’s 

privacy violations continue to surface. Facebook’s most recent confession, 
which inflates the number of Facebook users whose profiles were wrongly 
harvested to a staggering 87 million, serves as a chilling reminder of the 
malicious implications of modern technology. The sheer scale of Facebook’s 
data breach has inspired a renewed and thorough reflection of our society’s 
perception of privacy. But while this activism is indicative of a well-meaning 
and timely shift in public attitude toward the practice of data collection, 
it fails to address the problems beyond Facebook. A greater awareness of 
efforts to exploit our private information must also include calls for greater 
oversight of technology companies themselves.

JOIN OUR EDITORIAL BOARD

Our Editorial Board meets Mondays and Wednesdays 7:15-
8:45 PM at our newsroom at 420 Maynard Street. All are 
welcome to discuss national, state and campus affairs

It’s easier to 

resolve one’s guilt 
than to resolve the 

problem.

Hank Minor can be reached at 

hminor@umich.edu.

