What are your thoughts? Privacy and Facebook?

LandLocked66c · #1 (**permalink**) 12-14-2011

I'm curious what your thoughts are on Facebook? I know that there is an older demographic here and i'm curious if you think it's too much, too open... Do you feel that it's a bad thing, or do you subscribe to the notion that if you participate in it then you get what you get?

I've had an account and "deleted" it, I wasn't comfortable with the creepy stalker vibe I got from it and the amazing amount of time that can be wasted just perusing it... I will admit to being in the IT field and that I see FB as a really big privacy concern. I think we are already seeing the impacts of FB with suicides and murders occurring over status updates and so on. I know that if FB was around in high school it would have made things much much harder for some...

What are your thoughts?

I like this video, Zucker is sweating bullets...

bljones · #2 (**permalink**) 12-14-2011

Facebook is a great marketing tool- to a growing demographic, having a facebook presence lends a veneer of respectability to a company or organization.
Why?
Because, to a growing demographic, facebook is the beginning and the end of the internet. Their entire on-line experience revolves around facebook. hell, their entire lives, period, revolve around facebook.
And they like that. it fulfills a narcissistic need to be noticed in a world where people are becoming more faceless. Personally I don't give a crap about what your status is, what you had for breakfast and what your plans are today, but for some, "likes" validate their eixistence, and may be the only positive feedback they get.

And don't even get me started on the artificiality of the whole thing. If facebook had been around 30 years ago, Live Aid wouldn't have happened and Nelson Mandela would still be in jail...
But both would have had millions of "likes" and pages devoted to protest.

And don't even get me started on facebook friends.
Will a facebook "friend" post bail?
Is a facebook "friend" sitting beside you in the holding pen waiting for someone to post bail?

Then they AREN'T friends. they are data displayed on a screen for your entertainment.

Frankly, if I really wanted to reconnect with old classmates and find out what they are doing every day and see what their interests are...
I likely wouldn't have lost touch with them in the first place.

DRFerron · #3 (**permalink**) 12-14-2011

I think for the most part people spend too much time worrying about something no one forced them to participate in to begin with.

I agree with most of what bljones said. But I think most people get that the "friends" label is just that - a label. It had to be called something. "Bunch of People You May or May Not Really Know" is too long.

As for privacy, it shouldn't cause as much to-do as it has. Just don't put anything on Facebook that you don't want others to know. Simple. No one puts a gun to your head to post that your entire family will be away for the weekend so feel free to rob the house. Use some common sense.

I don't look at my Facebook page all that often, but I do like to share photos and updates with relatives and friends who care to know what I'm doing, where I traveled. It's an easy way to update them all at once. It doesn't mean I don't still pick up a phone or see them in person. It's just another way of communicating.

I've connected with relatives I never knew existed and who live across the country so it's not possible to have an impromptu lunch. I've reconnected with high school acquaintances and discovered that I like them much more as adults than I did as a kid. Unfortunately the ones I'd like to meet up with are now living far away.

Facebook is what you make it. Nothing more.

LandLocked66c · #4 (**permalink**) 12-14-2011

Quote:

Originally Posted by DRFerron

Facebook is what you make it. Nothing more.

That tends to be the most common answer. Playing the devils advocate here, have you removed the location data on photos that were posted from a "smart" phone? Or do you only use a personal camera? Those are the things i'm talking about, the information that people unknowingly provide...

Safer Photos: How to Remove Location Information from Mobile Images | MobileActive.org

PaulfromNWOnt · #5 (**permalink**) 12-14-2011

If you post stuff on the internet, anyone who wants to see it will be able to (just ask Mark Zuckerberg who had private photos exposed).

Personally, I use the site religiously because a couple of burly "gentlemen" politely "suggested" that it would "be in my best interest" to do so.

DRFerron · #6 (**permalink**) 12-14-2011

Quote:

Originally Posted by LandLocked66c

That tends to be the most common answer. Playing the devils advocate here, have you removed the location data on photos that were posted from a "smart" phone? Or do you only use a personal camera? Those are the things i'm talking about, the information that people unknowingly provide.

I have used both. I don't unknowingly provide anything. If I don't want someone with access to my Facebook page to know where I was and when, I don't post it. Otherwise, I don't care that the date and location are included.

I also use Twitter and post updates when we're sailing. Not all the time, maybe once or twice during the course of a multi-day trip if I want to share something unusual or beautiful. My Twitter posts are automatically posted on Facebook. I have turned on the option to show my location. Although sometimes it places me a couple miles from where I am actually located - it seems to be more accurate on the water. When I first tried it from my house to see how it worked it placed me three miles away in the eastbound lane of the PA Turnpike.

Maybe I'm an anomaly, but coming from an Information Security background, it doesn't scare me as much as it does a lot of people. Maybe because I don't let it control my life. Just use common sense. When you leave your house empty for vacation you don't put a sign on the lawn saying that you're not home and post the date you'll be back. Why would you do it so that people you barely know on Facebook would know?

When my niece and nephew were younger and wanted to be on Facebook, my brother opened an account to monitor what they were posting. By the time they reached 14 and 16, the novelty had worn off and they barely used it. At 15 my niece deleted her account of over a thousand "friends" because she didn't know them all and now limits the people with access to relatives and the 20 or so real friends she has. They grew up and out of it. If more people their age do the same thing, this trend will be over soon and we'll move on to worrying about the next thing coming down the road.

emoney · #7 (**permalink**) 12-14-2011

Well, the good news is that Facebook fills society's need for a "boogeyman" for some.
For others, it brightens their normally drab and mundane daily lives. For the majority in
the middle, it's just Facebook.

Wow.....that vaguely sounds like a reflection of society as a whole. Next thing you know
I'll be waxing poetic. I better hurry over to Facebook and tell all my friends!

bljones · #8 (**permalink**) 12-14-2011

Re-reading my previous post, I realize that I might have been more curmudgeonly than I intended.

I have a facebook account that I never post to, simply because the signal/noise ratio is too high. It IS, however, the one way I am able to keep up to date on the activities of my spawn, now that they are out-of-country at school.

I wouldn't be concerned about privacy issues as much as I would be about being immortalized on failbook or lamebook.
One can always hide one's location. One cannot hide a whole mess of stupid.

Funny Facebook Status Messages and Facebook Fails

Lamebook – Funny Facebook Statuses, Fails, LOLs and More – The Original

LandLocked66c · #9 (**permalink**) 12-14-2011

My wife is an artist and is finding it very hard to stay off of it. Like was mentioned above, it's used for business much more now. What amazes me about that is that FB basically owns the content once it's posted.

DRFerron · #10 (**permalink**) 12-14-2011

This reminded me of something.

My nephew started college this year. During freshman orientation the adviser flashed Facebook photos of their peers in various states of undress, drunken antics, etc.

Then he told them that they had no problem showing the photos as they were all publicly available (no privacy settings) and one reason the kids in the orientation were all sitting in that room was because the school did not find any photos like that of them.

I found that interesting. Colleges need to get the word out to middle schools however, instead of blindsiding them like that. Still. It's interesting.