I thought I was the only one who had ever hated the social network; Facebook. Trust me I have been made fun of hating the social network and even more so now that I blog about it. There is something in me that always says I mustn’t trust it too much and I guess many share the same view, at least Kevin Pollak fears the same, he loves Twitter but to him the F for Facebook instills Fear in him.
Talk about democracy, eh, Facebook never ceases to surprise me especially when it comes to privacy. Now your privacy in Facebook’s own opinion means nothing if it is fooling around for the good, the bad or the ugly and the only justification it has for this is that it is making the platform more democratic by giving users more confused control over their privacy.
That doesn’t mean that anyone outside the Facebook secret service can make use of user information, for any purpose. That is exactly what Pete Warden was supposedly doing by getting researchers to compile user data like statuses, news alerts, etc. He and his team had around 200 users whose data was used to create the data base. How did he happen to do that? Well as per reports the entrepreneur was working on a startup, creating a search engine for the same purpose when he got hands on all that. The social network watchdogs were immediately after him and threatened with a lawsuit, intelligently enough Pete destroyed the database. I bet anyone in the right state of mind would have done that, sure enough no individual has enough cash to pay for this.
You are asking for trouble when you trespass someone’s privacy. You also lose credibility if your consumers/users feel that their privacy is being put at stake and Facebook is a very real example of it. Late last month the social network released another tip on any update to privacy settings coming up that would potentially enable third party partners to have access to your information, even if you never visited the site. I, well almost everyone could have predicted a backlash in connection to this as always.
The news rolls out that the first reaction has come up from Ilse Aigner, Minister of Consumer Protection, Germany. The minister has announced that she will quit the social network, something quite obvious from anyone who is pretty serious about their privacy. Of course one user calling it quits over this issue wont create a choking difference but the position of the person quitting it has a great value. I bet it would expedite the concerns amongst many other users and have them question the social network.
Looks like Facebook is being sniffed by privacy experts in Germany and Switzerland. The allegation is that the social network lets people upload photos and videos of others on the site without their permission. Very rightly said, I mean how many times have you actually asked your friends before actually uploading their pictures? I bet no one ever does, primarily because we think it doesn’t really matter since they are friends.
I am sure it doesn’t really matter much if the others are also a part of the social network but what about those who aren’t? Should we actually overlook this matter and continue sharing important things, to be exact very private information like photos, etc on our albums. The data protection companies are also requesting the social network to share certain details and practices upon which users actually share online. At present the social network simply believes you when you upload or share information about anyone by placing the check box that says you comply that the image uploaded is your own. So is this really enough? I don’t think so.
Well not joking about anything here but if people can murder others for posting photos with a new boy friend, others can definitely get fired for posting photos fooling around someone’s private chambers. Today the leader of Hong Kong had his housekeeper fired because he posted photos of his friends playing around the premier’s private chambers. The photos included teens who were at his residence along with others for a barbecue.
Talk about privacy and more importantly file a lawsuit and almost immediately you get some sort of improvement coming from Facebook. We reported the issues that people had with the new privacy settings only recently and today the social network introduced new privacy controls. The new settings would give users a better grip on what information is shared on the applications they use.
The team at Facebook wants users to have a better control over what information each has access to. This is something that many of its users have had problems with when the social network stepped up its move to introduce a more public form of the social network. With the current settings out, the users will see tweaks on each app, probably a set of customizations like letting them share their activity with a select group of friends. This would also include customizations for Facebook Connect, which is quite essential given that it presently only offers users options to either share the content on any site on their profile or not to.
Adrian Renzi, a radio presenter has quit a group on the social networking site, Facebook. The reason? A racist campaign that states that a particular group on the social networking site thought that all trouble in a particular town was due to Aborigines. The reason is quite justified and the least he could have done to demonstrate his disgust over the act of those who did that.
The radio presenter had joined the group for he thought that the group would do a favor to the residents of Alice Springs by addressing the major issues that people faced in the town. Little was he aware that some locals had quite a hatred against the aborigines. The group has gained quite some attention given that a senior police official in on the group too, for some effective policing on the group and keeping an eye on what is being posted on the it. Quite a job to say the least, I can bet many people I know would love to do such monitoring and ever more efficiently.
There is no way you can satisfy everyone and the job gets tougher the more you grow in popularity. The same is the case with Facebook as the social network continues to face issues from its users every now and then. Presently, five people in the Northern District of California have filed a lawsuit against the social network.
I have all the praise for Facebook, from being the leading social network that has mashed up every aspect of networking into one platform to being a tool for brands to keep consumers occupied. But there is one thing I seriously dislike about it: it is so very secret. Secret about the most important issue: User Privacy.
Wow, there is so much to talk about when it comes to Facebook that people will actually come up with a fabricated tale a.k.a Interview to gain some attention. Apparently The Rumpus has got hold of the inside news or should I say obscure facts courtesy an anonymous Facebook employee. The information revealed isn’t surprising in any manner but what remains to be seen is if it is true or false.
To begin with Facebook has denied authenticity of the information spilled by the shadow employee. Larry Yu of Facebook has turned it down stating:
