I rant, therefore I am.
As an individual, I c
ertainly don’t want information I consider private to be placed ‘out there’ for everyone to see. However, as someone who has only been on Facebook for a year or so, I’ve always treated what I place out there with extreme vigilance. Part of that vigilance stemmed from weekly staff meetings where we constantly discussed the use of data on the Internet (whether it was potential employers investigating candidates or people being robbed after mentioning online that they would be away). Part of that vigilance is also realizing that even though my privacy settings were made to allow only ‘friends’ to view my information, it doesn’t mean others won’t. I’ve also not accepted ‘friend’ requests from everyone that asks – I currently have about 50 friends on my site.
Privacy is not what it once was — you can’t merely close the shades and think no one will know your business. Each of us must accept responsibility for our actions. Don’t post pictures on Facebook if you don’t want everyone to see them. Don’t tweet something you would be embarrassed to read six months from now. Don’t share your passwords.
That being said, do I appreciate the fact that Facebook changed the way it did things without notifying me first? No. Do I like having to reset my privacy settings and remove things I don’t want marketers to see? No. Am I annoyed enough to abandon Facebook? Not yet.
We live in a democracy — in a free-market society. If I don’t like what Facebook is doing, I’ll stop using it. If enough of us feel that way Facebook will either change, or go the way of the dinosaur. I think Congress becoming involved is ridiculous, it is akin to them going to Wal-Mart and saying “we don’t like you having credit card scanners by the registers, it could compromise my security. Please remove them.”
The government should worry about the legitimate issues it needs to deal with, but that is another rant.
April 30, 2010 at 1:49 pm
Great post, Tammy! I agree with you 100 percent. Facebook is a great tool, but I continue to be amazed by those who use it ineffectively or inappropriately. I believe these missteps will come back to haunt them. I saw that firsthand this week with two of my FB friends. That’s another discussion for another day. Let’s have lunch soon!
April 30, 2010 at 2:01 pm
As with most things, there is also a generational divide. There is some interesting speculation about *ahem* younger people and how they have not lived their adult lives without “online awareness”. For them, participation has almost become madatory — if they don’t maintain their online persona, it will be defined/created for them by their ‘friends’ through photos and other information posted to their sites.
Lunch sounds good!
May 1, 2010 at 8:28 pm
Excellent post, Tammy!
May 2, 2010 at 12:28 am
Thank you!
July 14, 2010 at 7:27 pm
[...] I rant, therefore I am. Facebook has had run-ins with China and with Pakistan over differences in what their countries views as private and public. The issue is one of data protection regulations in different countries. In one country something is fine, in another it is not. Think about it like this, what happens if a business person from Germany takes his laptop to France for a conference and uploads photos of folks he met. He then travels to Spain for another conference and uploads more photos before heading back to Germany. Are the photos subject to the laws in Germany, France or Spain? According to CNET, “after acquiring a jaw-dropping 7.8 million new monthly active users in the U.S. in May, it only picked up 320,800 in June, the research found, and among users age 18-25 and 35-44 it actually lost traffic.” Some suspect the media hype over privacy issues may be to blame. [...]