The facebook logo.(Image source: http://www.facebook.com/)
The rise of the Internet has brought upon us social networking sites such as Friendster, MySpace, and Facebook, and the latter is still currently all the rage on the Internet. Firstly, here's the tricky question: what is private, and what is not on Facebook, since almost everything is practically out in the open on your Facebook profile.
Holter (2007) asserts that Facebook informs you whenever a friend of yours adds another friend, or if a friend adds you, or if the littlest change happens to your profile. However, in sites like this, the amount of exposure can lead to dangerous consequences.
An article that is to be discussed today highlights the issue of Facebook invading the privacy of individuals written by Chris Vallance on BBC News.
The social networking site will be quizzed about its data protection policies by the Information Commissioner's Office following a complaint by a user of the site who was unable to fully delete his or her profile even though he or she terminated their account. Facebook, however, has stood by its policy and states that it is in 'full compliance with UK data protection law' (Vallance, 2008).
This Facebook privacy issue is further confirmed by Walsh (2006) who states that web design provides factual information in words or graphics with the purpose of giving information to the users on a certain subject. Based on this, it is seen that Facebook is only trying to do the right thing by providing their members' information.
Facebook has provided a remedy, however, by allowing you to alter your Facebook privacy settings to your liking.
References:
Walsh, M 2006, The textual shift: examining the reading process with print, visual and multimodal texts, Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, vol.29, no.1, pp. 24-37
Holter, E 2007, To Facebook or Not to Facebook, viewed 9 November 2008,
Vallance, C 2008, FaceBook face privacy questions, BBC News, viewed on 10 November 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7196803.stm
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