Thursday, March 21, 2013
03/21/13
In the reading for class a major topic was the privacy of a persons account on Facebook. At first I thought that the paper was mostly gonna talk about how people post private information and that some friend who they do not want to see it, end up seeing it. The paper was partly about that then it started to talk about how people try to make Facebook much more private so that no who they deem unwanted will not see their post. First was the simple ways by clearing your friends list to people who you do not want seeing your post or things you are tagged in. When I first thought about this I though, "Well of course you should do those things." Then the article went into how people bypass simple things like that because of how much Facebook changed their Privacy settings. I became extremely worried at this point because I thought that my Facebook settings were set to the default. (Thankfully they were not.) I did not realize how many people could see a person's Facebook profile without even being friends with them. The amount of access one had to see other peoples's information was scary. The paper started talking about how this has caused people to violate Facebook's Terms of use guidelines. By changing their name to either being shorter or just using an initial, to even forging a fake last name. After reading that statement I came to realize that legally speaking I had a few friends who were breaking those guidelines. To be honest I started to consider doing so to help keep my information private. What amazed me the most was the reasoning that Facebook changed their default privacy settings. They did so for advertisements that way they can make money. If it wasn't enough that the article scared me in class Dr. Edwards showed us a graph about how much Facebook's privacy settings changed over the years. The worse fact about the low default privacy settings was that it is almost strange for a person to not have a Facebook. Some employers may think that because a person does not have a Facebook, he or she may be an antisocial shut in. So not only does one basically need a Facebook one has to make sure that he or she keeps track of who has access to the information they post. I find that the fact that Facebook went from privacy being a huge deal to allowing more and more people see the information quite appalling.
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I have changed my last name on my Facebook to keep myself private from unwanted people. At first it was to keep my family (aunts and cousins) from adding me to bud into my private life. I can't have that. Now thinking about it I am glad that I changed to for professional use and when I am out job hunting. I don't remember Facebook telling me I broke the rules of their social site. I do not intend on changing my account back to how it used to be, and I also may think about deleting my account for good.
ReplyDeletePrivacy is a big thing to people, especially online. And now Facebook is allowing our information to be seen from any random stranger, is just blasphemy to me. One thing I dont understand is how Facebook and other sites get away with changing their privacy settings randomly without notifying their customers.
I find it really interesting that we've all become so comfortable with loading up some random space online with our personal information that we would be cautious to even share to people we know with any degree of closeness. Even if we had no intention on sharing some of the information we have uploaded, Facebook was known for quietly changing its terms of service and privacy permissions. Of course, Facebook has since has had to operate with some degree of transparency in that respect. The goal here was of course to monetize your existence online.
ReplyDeleteI also identify with your concern about the possession of a Facebook account as a social norm, much like that of having a phone number or email address. The worst part is that it's a norm that generates money from you and leaves a trail of data that is 100% unique to you. It's all a bit of a double-edged sword really. If guarding one's social identity is so challenging and important, I have to ask: who thought Facebook was a good idea anyways?