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The implications of social media
The implications of social media
The implications of social media
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Executive Summary
Facebook collects a lot of information, which the users share, and the way it has used and protected this information has come under scrutiny quite a few times in the past. The purpose of this report was to find the ways in which the information is shared on the website and the control the user has over how the information is shared. Most of the data in this report was collected from Facebook’s official data use policy.
Facebook is getting more open and social with every policy update and this poses problems for the privacy enthusiasts. The way Facebook collects and uses information can be categorised into two. One is information that the user can share under their control, and the other is information that is collected autonomously over which the user has little or no control.
The default settings in place for information that user has control over are generally set in such a way that everyone can access that information. However, it was also found that there are enough settings to help the user enhance their privacy.
In conclusion, Facebook has some issues regarding privacy but the average user can still have their privacy intact. However, Facebook may not be ideal for the privacy enthusiast, given the open nature, towards which Facebook is heading. Facebook could also better inform the users on their privacy and the settings they can use to achieve that.
Introduction
Facebook is currently the most popular means of social media with nearly a billion users per month (eBizMBA, 2014). Such heavy usage raises the possibility of users sharing massive amounts of data, intentionally or otherwise, via the internet. Facebook collects all this data and stores them. A critical examination of Facebook’s pr...
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...social. Similarly, if people follow the trend of high SNS usage, they will share more information regardless of the privacy policies employed by Facebook. Hence, it is the responsibility of both parties to take steps to enhance the whole social experience.
From Facebook’s perspective, it would be ideal for them to inform the user about their privacy clearly and the settings that are in place to improve the privacy. In addition, Facebook should take care while introducing new features or privacy policies, to inform the users about how exactly they affect the privacy of the user.
From the users’ perspective, as mentioned above, they should take care to control how they share their information. Different users have different mindsets regarding privacy, and the settings over which the users have control, they should use them to maintain a suitable level of privacy.
“The standards of what we want to keep private and what we make public are constantly evolving. Over the course of Western history, we’ve developed a desire for more privacy, quite possibly as a status symbol…”(Singer) Technological change leads to new abuses, creating new challenges to security, but society adapts to those challenges. To meet the innate need for privacy, we learn what to reveal and where, and how to keep secret what we don't want to disclose. “Whether Facebook and similar sites are reflecting a change in social norms about privacy or are actually driving that change, that half a billion people are now on Facebook suggests that people believe the benefits of connecting with others, sharing information, networking, self-promoting, flirting, and bragging outweigh breaches of privacy that accompany such behaviours,”(Singer) This is obvious by the continuous and unceasing use of social media platforms, but what needs to be considered is that this information is being provided willingly. “More difficult questions arise when the loss of privacy is not in any sense a choice.”(Singer) When the choice to be anonymous it taken away through social media, the person loses the ability to keep their personal information
Jeff Jarvis is a journalist, professor, and public speaker. In his book, “Public Parts”, Jarvis’s own opinions on “publicness” are stated plainly. He sees both social and personal benefits to living a totally public life on the internet. David Kirkpatrick is a technology journalist and author. He offers no opinion of his own on subject of total public disclosure. He has written two books on the social media giant Facebook. Kirkpatrick’s book “The Facebook Effect” was reviewed by David Pogue in The New York Times, Sunday Book Review. Pogue wrote, “You come away with a creepy new awareness of how a directory of college students is fast becoming a directory of all humanity — one that’s in the hands of a somewhat strange 26-year-old wearing a T-shirt and rubber Adidas sandals.” His book may leave readers more cautious than ever about what information they themselves are uploading to the
One day I travelled in Italy, in there I met my new friend Patricia. She asked me if I had Facebook. This is my first time to heard Facebook, Since Facebook was blocked in China.I asked my friend what Facebook was. She told me that Facebook was a social media to contact with friends and make new friend. She asked me to create a new account in Facebook. I said:" Ok, I will create it right now." After creating Facebook, I liked chatting with friends in the messenger, sharing my life with my friends, reading interesting posts. I also made some new friends from Facebook. I thought that Facebook was a great invention. I did not have privacy awareness until I read this news. One day I read news as usual, one article grabbed my attention. It was
According to socialfish.org, the Facebook Privacy Policy is wanting users to automatically public display personal information such as user’s names, location, gender, and photographs, as well as social media activity such as “liked” pages and friends lists. Also, on Facebook when you message people on their messaging application people are allowed to see your location just by the click of the message that was sent. Even if you turn off the location setting on Facebook, the application still allows you to see it so you have to turn off the location button every time you send a message to someone if you do not want them to see your location is one example of our privacy being invaded. According to USA Today, research behavioral scientists shows that Facebook is a big issue with privacy and our every move is being watched from how parents interact with their kids to what we post or share. “Indeed, a University of Vienna study published in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, found almost half of Facebook users who left the site said it was over privacy concerns”. Popular social media that we use daily such as Facebook, Google+, Wikipedia, and Yahoo have all changed their privacy policies recently. According to Forbes, “Facebook recently announced changes to its default privacy settings on sharing with friends, it was revealed also that it could access smartphone mics to capture and analyze the songs, TV shows and other things users
Facebook : Every single day we read the news ,and think that Facebook might be antiprivacy. It is also observed that people often think that social networking sites offer complicated privacy settings. The CEO...
With social media websites being the main hub of personal information, advertisers are consistently monitoring our social media activity, having the ability to look into our personal information. In the article "Advertising and Consumer Privacy: Old Practices and New Challenges." by Justine Rapp states, “Fueled by advances in capabilities and interconnectedness of computer based technology, advertisers are able to collect and assimilate information on consumers like no other time history” (51). Facebook has become the number one, social media website around the globe. It is the most popular website used by personal and business users in today’s society. In the article “Using Social Media to Reach Consumers: A Content Analysis of Official Facebook Pages” by Amy Parsons states, “As of July 2011, the social network site Facebook claims to have over 750 million members and in the terms of activity.” (27), making it easy to meet and connect with others. Facebook is considered the “hot spot” for online social activity, however, it exposes personal information about its consumers to
Facebook allows people to connect with one another encouraging privatization and commodification. He argues that Facebook is able to prioritize “disclosure” above other modes with relations to the world in such a way that is evident to be simply a user’s rational decision. Displaying how Facebook positions itself as a neutral platform while constructing specific trajectories of user activity, he explains code changes in how the news feed proceeds to operate. This includes the "updating" of the privacy policies along with trials of making user information "radically transparent."
When using Facebook, users are able to perform many different tasks while connecting with various individuals. Some of the functions and applications that are available for users include: the ability to create a profile, become friends with individuals, send private messages, post comments on friend’s walls, and share pictures on your profile page. Along with these functions, there must be a level of protection that guards the Facebook account holders. However, according to Facebook’s privacy principles, the network states that “People should have the freedom to share whatever information they want, in any medium or any format, and have ...
Facebook privacy and security have many benefits, problems, and challenges. There is a benefit for every security setting on Facebook but the real concern comes along when it comes to facing the problem and how this problem goes into different steps of challenges, and how we can fix that problem in order for privacy not to be a huge issue. A person that has access to Facebook wants to share their everyday moments to the world such as sharing personal posts, photos and videos, and that’s what Facebook is basically known for.
The issues caused by online privacy are growing with the increase of Social Networking Sites. Virtually all Social Networking Sites have ‘public’ as their default privacy setting, however that is not what the majority of users prefer. According to a survey by the Pew Research Center’s Internet Project & American Life, 80 % of the users go to the effort to change their settings to private. With the increasing awareness of cyber – crime and the need for privacy, users have now started to rethink their actions online. Carefully selecting whom among your Facebook friends see your personal information, and who should be restricted, blocked or unfriended.
The 21st century has brought a lot of modern ideas, innovations, and technology. One of these is social media. The invention of Facebook has completely changed the way we communicate with one another. Instant messaging, photo sharing, and joining online groups have created a way for families and friends to connect. Some argue that Facebook is the greatest invention however, while it is seemingly harmless, Facebook has created an invasion of privacy. The accessibility of Facebook and its widespread use has created privacy problems for users, teens, and interviewees by allowing easy control to viewers.
The first aspect being addressed is the problem with social network sites exposing information. Social networking has created an environment where it is nearly a duty to expose oneself. Profiles on these social websites are updated everyday with personal information such as locations, status, and future plans. Anyone can search another’s name and find information about their history, pictures, and activity. With the help of social networking sites...
Facebook holds several uses and features for its users. When one joins a social networking site, they make a unique profile that showcases information about him or her, like a birthday or a current relationship status. From there, he or she can “add friends” that they can search for on the website. This gives them access to his or her profile, allowing them to see everything that had created since joining and vice-versa (Dwyer 1). It is extremely common nowadays to have a Facebook profile with many friends linked to you who can see your status updates, photos, and even the places you ...
With more than 500 million active users, the site is a warehouse of personal information. Personal profiles allow users to provide information about their name, age, hometown, relationship status, activities, job, school, and more. They can connect with the others’ profiles and become ”friends”. Combined with a profile picture, you can pretty much learn anything you want to know about somebody over Facebook (should they choose to provide the information). However, what many users fail to realize is that in most cases this information is not only available to their “friends”. Though users can change their privacy settings to limit with whom their profile information is shared, the site gathers and stores more than most of us want to acknowledge. For instance, the Facebook “Like” butto...
Keeping your privacy is getting harder and harder to do, but even though the privacy setting can help to an extent, they don’t always work the way they should. Putting information out for the public eye to see can be a risk but could also be used to the Facebook users advantage. With this comes a loss of privacy that the user has to deal with. No matter how many privacy settings are used or are changed they never a guaranty of full privacy. The only real way to guaranty this is to stay away from social media completely. With that we would lose the connected world we have today.