Facebook: Profile Privacy

Facebook: Profile Privacy

Facebook is a fast growing social networking site enabling people from all over the globe to set up profiles about themselves and share information with friends. It allows you to have control over the information you put into your profile to share with your friends and also allows you access to other peoples shared information. The social networking culture has taken a new face in communications and we are seeing people of all ages interacting with this technology in a way not seen ever before. Some seem to rely on this form of communication more and more each day, gathering information about other people and sharing more about themselves. Because of the growing success of online social networking people find it too easy to reveal information about themselves that they probably would not reveal to someone they meet on the bus. This freedom of expression is widely acceptable and has caught the attention of hackers and the like providing many doors into our personal information, making their job easier now than it used to be. Our personal information put onto the web can be distributed within seconds by a click of the mouse. It is within that second that the ways in which you conduct ourselves and the measures we take online matters. As the age of online communication is embedded in our everyday lives, we as users need to educate ourselves on exactly what is going on after a click of the mouse is made and who is waiting on the other side for that information about you and what are they doing with it. The way in which the information circulating the networks is handled will be discussed, focusing on the privacy issues of private information put onto a Facebook profile. Facebook’s Privacy Policy as well as their Terms of Use will be examined and suggestions on how to further protect your Facebook profile will be considered.

Information posted by the user as content on their profile is available for Facebook to store and use for other purposes however they see fit, according to Facebook’s Terms of Use (2008):
By posting user content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide licence (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for nay purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, or in connection with the site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing. (p.3)
A user binds into this agreement upon signing up for a profile with Facebook. Although users are all aware of the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy tab to be clicked on signup, many do not bother to read the print inside the links next to the box. This is where the issue of your profile being kept “private” becomes an issue. If the user is not aware of the conditions of using the site they will end up passing their private information onto third parties without even knowing. According to the Terms of Use, Facebook will not pass any of your contact or personal information to Third parties unless you grant them permission to do so. Herein lies the problem and we return back to the user being aware of the conditions of the site. Applications used on Facebook are representative of the Third parties. Once a networker uses one of those applications, their information is then sold to the relevant Third parties, which in turn sends that information to their other connected companies. The networker has all the power to control the information that gets released to unknown people, it is just wether they are prepared to educate themselves about the workings of the Cyber world.

In addition, as soon as personal information; contact details, photos, likes, dislikes; are sold to advertisers and other companies they immediately become a target for phishing attacks. “This all highlights how social networking sites are the latest front in the war against threats of all types” (Hunter, 2008, p.17). These attacks aim at gathering bank account as well as credit card details. An invitation from a friend might come through on the users profile wall requesting them to join the application, cause or become a member of something. The link could be to an unsafe site containing malicious software which then retrieves the information it needs. Control of this is not the responsibility of Facebook (2008):
Such Third party sites and Third party Applications, software or Content are not investigated, monitored or checked for accuracy, appropriateness, or completeness by us, and we are not responsible for any Third party accessed through the site…. (p.5)

Furnell (2008) conducted an experiment in the United States with 32, 16-17 year olds about their experiences with social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Bebo. According to the results 19% said they sent requests to people they didn’t know, 25% said they have received friend requests by people they didn’t know 15% of whom accepted the request. Although this questionnaire was carried out with small percentage of the users on Facebook, it is still an astounding fact that many users, especially teenagers, as at risk of revealing too much information to the wrong people. It is unknown who is sitting at the other end of that profile picture. In the Cyber world we are only who we say we are on the keyboard or screen.

The Privacy Policy of Facebook leaves much up to the networker. Jones & Stoltren (2005) say there are two types of categories user submitted information can be put into; First party information (Personal, basic, professional, contact information, and profile picture) and Third party information subdivided into “My photos” and “Wall”. Facebook default settings are set at all users to view your networks, profile and personal information. According to getsofaonline.org 13% of users post photographs of other people without their consent with 18-24 year olds being 27% of them. Facebook states in their Privacy Policy (2008) that it cannot control what other users do who you choose to share your information with, therefore not guaranteeing that your page will not be viewed by unknown people. Facebook collects information about you from other sources for a more personalised experience. Information of a user on Facebook is used for people to find you, networks to access your profile, information to be sent and received by Facebook by you and customising what is on your page to your preference information collected by Facebook. The spectrum is so broad in regards to the amount of your information that it continuously circulating networks and the site. One Privacy issue that Facebook (2008) has made an effort to control is the results in search engines in regard to a users’ profile. Google, Yahoo! and the like are blocked from searching for keywords within a users’ profile. The search is limited to and does not go beyond the user’s name and profile picture.

The amount of personal information released on Facebook is entirely up to the user and Facebook has provided some powerful control settings. If utilise to its full potential, personal information and transference of information and daily doings on Facebook can and will be fully controlled. Sophos has put together a breakdown of being able to utilise the Facebook privacy settings to their full potential. There are three things a user is able to customize; Profile, Contact information and Application of Profile.

First change to make is who is able to view your profile. As mentioned before, Facebook’s default settings allow everyone in your networks and all your friends to view your profile. Users are recommended to select the “Only my friends” option as this will limit viewing of your profile and what you post onto it, as well as information shared with only the people in the friends list. This option can be further broken down into six other categories, all of which Sophos recommends to customise. Online status should be changed to either the “No one” or the “Only my friends” option. The next change should be status updates. Unless you want everyone in your network to see how you feel today (could be a colleague or employer in one of your networks) this option should be set at “Only my friends”. The third is Friends should only be viewed by people you know so “Only my friends” is selected. Fourth, wall, should be set at “Only friends” because this is the information that pops up on everyone’s profile as an interesting read. If you do not want everyone to know about what you are up to on the weekend with who, then limit it to just your friends. The same option is to be selected for photos and videos tagged. If you do not want people you do not know to see how you behave in your free time then do not show them what does not concern them. Choosing setting options as these will provide you with a much more secure social networking experience minimising the threat of identity theft, malicious sites and revealing too much to strangers.

Facebook’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy both clearly state that Facebook and its company are not responsible for any harm that might come to the user upon the use of the site. Control of the content of the user’s page and the way in which it is used is solely the responsibility of that user, until the user provides permission to Facebook to use the information as specified. However, in releasing control of the information of the profile, Facebook has also clearly stated that all content, i.e. photographs, videos, music etc uploaded onto the site, as soon as they are, they become the property of Facebook and therefore enables them to what ever they please with them. That is the agreement the user agrees to and therein poses the problem. Is it really the issue of Facebook that it does not monitor the safety of information of users and the privacy of that information when signing up alone and wanting to be apart of an online community is the beginning of the user inviting unwanted eyes into their lives, allowing hundreds of people to watch their activities and the progress of their lives. It begins and ends with the user. Responsibility, although morally it is, is not that of Facebook and its site but rather of the person looking to be active in the online world. If users think that being apart of Facebook does not interfere with their physical private lives, we as users, need to make our own decisions on what we deem as private, and then make the appropriate moves to satisfy that decision.



References

Furnell, S. (2008). End-user security culture: A lesson that will never be learnt?. Computer Fraud & Security, 4(2008). Retrieved December 7, 2008, from http://www.sciencedirect.com.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VNT-4S807WG-F&_user=79777&_coverDate=04%2F30%2F2008&_alid=839566690&_rdoc=9&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_cdi=6187&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=76&_acct=C000006418&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=79777&md5=ea1217227511e800c4f3d1807d28cb76

Hunter, P. (2008). Social networking: the focus for the new threats- and old ones. Computer Fraud & Security, 7(2008). Retrieved December 8, 2008, from http://www.sciencedirect.com.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VNT-4T3F9B5-D&_user=79777&_coverDate=07%2F31%2F2008&_alid=839482795&_rdoc=17&_fmt=high&_orig=mlkt&_cdi=6187&_sort=v&_st=17&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=99&_acct=C000006418&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=79777&md5=4e5d2f42ca4b2fd721fecff711f9f515

Jones, H., Soltren, J. (2005). Facebook: Threats to Privacy. Retrieved December 7, 2008, from http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/student-papers/fall05-papers/facebook.pdf

Facebook. (2008). Facebook: Privacy Policy. Retrieved December 7, 2008, from http://www.facebook.com/policy.php

Facebook. (2008). Facebook: Terms of Use. Retrieved December 7, 2008, from http://www.facebook.com/terms.php

Sophos. (2008). Sophos recommends: Profile privacy settings. Retrieved December 7, 2008, from http://www.sophos.com/security/best-practice/facebook-profile.html

1501ART assessment by student

We were also asked to assess the course during the Sumer Semester both through an online assessment as well as on our blogs.

I really did enjoy the course becasue it got me thinking about New Technologies more than I would have had I not been involved in this course. I reaslised how much I do take the new technologies that I use for granted, and do not pay much attention to the main issues that were brought up and discussed in the lectures like privacy online. This is more serious than I thought and of course have now become aware of it and how it can affect my personal life. The course encouraged me to question technology and embrace it at the same time. There are so many great technologies to be involved in, so many ways of communication that are out there that I would not have known about, because of being nieve. Adam had many interesting ideas that he shared with the class, all of which were of value. My understanding of the greater new technology work outside of my computer is all thanks to Adam's successfull attempt to share his knowledge on the subject of the Internet and its' many social, cultural and academic communities.

This is the last day and the Semester has come to an end. I'm glad I too this course and look forward to being involved in many more just like it during my studies as one of my Majors is Digital writing. Thank-you Adam.

Lecture & Tutorial 10

This was the final day ouf the subject and in the Lecture we wrapped up everything, the main outcomes of the topics, what ideas we thought about. It summed up to be that we are taking New Tchnologies for granted becasue it is incresingly all around us but what is going to happen if we stop paying attention to what is really going on with Technology. Our privacy is being questioned and soon can possibly be non existent with hackers growing in numbers and more of our private information bieng splurged onto the internet. Of course this is mostly happening by our own doing but our control of it is becomming questionable. What are we doing with New Technologies in our lives and how are they affecting our social interaction with each other and our personal lives. We also had a quick quiz from the exam questions used in the Semester course. I scored 11/20, which was ok considering that there was no studying involved. Some questions we had no clue about becasue we had not covered them in the lecture but they were actually ok.

During the turorial we didn't have much to cover. We got stuck into our blogs and continued to work on our essays for next week. We also completed an online assessment of the course. Quick and easy.

Tutorial 9: Written task

The literature by Marc Prensky, Emerging online life of the digital native, is a very true representation of what the digital world means to the younger generation now than it does to the older generation. This was an interesting read because it clearly defined what have become the social workings of the “Digital Natives” (Prensky, ) as a norm and acceptable form of communication.

The connection of the facts in this paper are valid to my experiences with New Communication technologies and the Digital world, where it’s involvement in my life has become a daily activity that makes up some of biggest communication with my social network of friends and information gathering. My use of my mobile phone is a good example where, I can access anything on the net, chat with friends, visit Facebook, search for recipes, find maps, look for restaurants close by, play games, make sounds, and check my e-mail; the lists go on. Anything I need to do on a daily basis, I am able to do with my phone including written assignments for University. All at the tip of my fingers without leaving my home for instance. However, obviously in terms of thorough academic research, more access to other resources not available on my phone is needed. This is where, for me, the Digital world has its limits in that not everything you find on the net is a reliable source. Sometimes referring to hard copies of books and journals in the library are the best sources of information. Although according to Prensky’s literature, this fact can be counteracted by dedicated Digital Natives, therefore proving that my age group might be out of that bracket.


Kids quickly realised that “lookism,” that seldom-talked-about but insidious social divider, doesn’t exist at all on the web... (Prensky, 2004). This is a very much realised statement that many Internet users can connect with. On the Internet and our dealings with it we are able to become who we want to become, and the physical dimensions of ourselves are no longer considered. You are able to become who ever you want to become and possibly express yourself more accurately because of that. An example of this it the use of an avatar in a 3D world where you are able to create an image of yourself however you wish to portray yourself. Second Life is the best example of people taking on a new identity through the Internet and are therefore becoming people that they are not in the real world.


Dave Weinberger, author of A New World, takes the angle of social identity on the net from a different angle in that we become different people through the use of the Internet because of the things we do when using it. He refers to searching for products on eBay, bidding on them and coming back to the computer hours later to check on your bid as “returning to a story that was in progress, waiting for me whenever I wanted” (Weinberger, 2002). We are able to continue our “lives” at our own pace with the use of New Technologies because they are there when we need them, and are only useful to use at our demand. This is unlike our personal lives sans New Technologies, like shopping for groceries, where we are unable to complete half the shopping, leave the half filled trolley in the isle and return back to it the next day and expect it to still be there just where we left it. What we can do in the real world is limited in time to what we can do in the digital world. I shop online and find that I prefer doing so for certain things and I know that this is something that I wouldn’t do in the real world, in a retail store in a shopping centre. There is a freedom one has being active in the digital world that one would not have in the real world. A true and exciting, but also sad, reality of New Technologies and the way we use them to communicate and define who we are.

References:

Prensky, M. (2004). Emerging online life of the digital native. Retrieved December 3, 2008, from http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky-The_Emerging_Online_Life_of_the_Digital_Native-03.pdf

Weinberger, D. (2002). A New World. Retrieved December 3, 2008, from http://www.smallpieces.com/content/chapter1.html

Lecture 9: Virtual world

In another interesting elcture we discussed the virtual world versus the real world. Questions were posed about where are we able to draw the line of what is real and what is not. Communication has changed so much in the past centuries, beginning where Aristotal and Plato first identified what was communication. They said it was an exchange of words from one person to the next, information being transported between two people. Now with Technologies the way ot is today with so many virtual world existing, communiaction is no longer just between two people passing on one message. Communication of information is now passing a message onto hundreds of people in one attempt. The virtual world has allowed the real world to be expressed faster and more effectively making the line hard to be defined.

We discussed the films that increasingly base their stories on the future, predicting what it will be like once technology becomes smarter than us. A world run by machines is not far reaching for the world today becasue as it is we dictate most of our everyday lives with the use of computers and machines in one form of another; we rely on them. This is the true reality that we need to face and question whether we want the ideas from the movies of how the future will be to become a reality, where we lose all control of the way we live our lives and are soon so reliant and dictated by technology and it's virtual worlds, forgetting who the human race is really. This is a troubling thought that I presume will get more exposure adn research as technology continues to grow. Will we refer back to Plato's cave in 100 years from now and understand the meaning of his theory?

So much to think about that it almost seems so uncomprehensible to do so.

Lecture & Tutorial 8: Privacy online and making my own short movie

Privacy online was the focus today. We discussed the effects of network neutrality and how it can affect what we can view on the web. It was interesting to find out that the Australian government is looking to filter websites they find inappropriate for the Australian public to view. The thought of the government looking to decide what we can and cannot view on the web is disconcerting because it is then constricting what we take part in in our lives. This is a serious issue that will no doubt upset the majority of the public. The internet was made for everyone to be an open and free network but it would now be controlled by the government. Just another thing that the government feels the need to 'own'. The filtering obviously would be something of worth to children who would then not be exposed to inappropriate things on the internet for them, but in that respect, it should be up to the parents to choose to use a filter in their homes that they government has already provided. We discussed that the education of the parents on shielding children from filth on the internet should be the first attempt. Parents should be brought up to date on what is really happening on the net, and then decide to implement the appropriate filtering in their homes. Everything starts at home. We viewed a video from The Stephen Colbert Show, where the guest was an author of the book The Future of the Internet and the End of it. This book highlights what is happening to the Internet the more technology is able to progress with it eg. iPhone. The more the Internet gets better the more we are unable to control it. What will happen is it keeps on progressing? Machines passing on endless codes to each other and communicating with each other without the command of a person. This is just what's happening now where machines just know what to do without us telling them becasue they are programmed that way. But what will happen when the code they are communicating with each other develops faster than we can control. Something to think about.

In the tutorial we completed out video for YouTube and have published it to the web. I completed mine and added sound to it. It was very exciting. I might just be doing more of these and polishing my skills in movie making.