Privacy is a privilege. As average citizens of the United States, we are allowed quite a bit of privacy, options, opportunities, and freedoms. We realize that people in countries surrounding us may not be so lucky. Knowing that we are more fortunate, are we willingly giving up this special privilege by getting involved with the internet? Or are we being robbed of our privilege by the internet? Entering into any social media site such as Facebook, Twitter, or Myspace, you are inevitably giving up your privacy by simply being on there, in addition to the material you choose to share. When you enter into a site there are settings you set for yourself based on how private a person you are. The question that should be asked here is; do those settings really protect you? Getting involved in the internet whether it is personal or professional is a gamble, and if you have both one could affect the other. Anything you say, any group you enter, any pictures uploaded, can be used against a person or a company at any time. Hackers can easily get through your security setting and take what they want. Photos can be copied and used as someone or something else’s, even though they are yours. These problems have been circulating the news for quite some time now. New improvements are being tested and created on a regular basis to increase security.
Facebook is the latest to get involved in the fight for security. According to reports from the NYTimes.com, “When the changes are introduced on Thursday, every time Facebook users add a picture, comment or any other content to their profile pages, they can specify who can see it: all of their so-called Facebook friends, a specific group of friends, or everyone who has access to the Internet. These will be indicated by icons that replace the current, more complicated padlock menu. Similar controls will apply to information like users’ phone numbers and hometowns and whether they like, say, death metal bands, on their profile pages. Users will no longer have to seek out a separate privacy page to tweak who sees how much of that personal information. Nor will they have to bother to remember what those settings were. Company officials say they hope the changes will simplify the process of establishing who knows what about your life on the Internet — and hopefully, save a few people the embarrassment of unwittingly sharing too much.”
Is it really the companies (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) that need to save people from the embarrassment of sharing too much or does the responsibility need to lie in the fingertips of the typer? It is not just personal profiles that are being affected, big businesses with FB Fan pages, and employees entering LinkedIn are seeing similar security breaches. Make sure every step you take you will want to support later and surf smart.
For an in-depth look at our nations take on these on-going privacy problems:
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