Social+Networking+Privacy+(AC)



Social Networking Feed: rss url="http://www.libworm.com/rss/librarianfeeds/subjects/Social-Networking.xml" link="true" number="5" This is a feed showing blog posts and news related to social networking, which all relates to privacy because most new developments in social networking features a breakdown of privacy of your information over the internet.

The Social: CNET Social News blog rss url="http://news.cnet.com/8300-13577_3-36.xml?tag=mncol" link="true" number="5" On this feed, there are many opinion stories about current issues involving social networking, many of them having to do with privacy issues and what are being done about them.

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This video is from CBS News discussing the issue of Facebook taking the information you have on your profile and sharing it over the internet. Facebook plans to take the information that you post on your profile like the bands you like, your favorite books, and the pages you like, and then share it with advertisements to make the advertisers product market easier to find and target.



This book is about the changes society is going through lately with the digital age. Now that everyone is online and spends most of their day at a computer, the way we interact is completely different. This book examines this new change we are going through, and since this digital age comes with a loss of privacy since sharing information is highly encouraged, this book would be an eye opening read.

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How much privacy we think we have vs. How much privacy we really have
We have window shades and door locks on our houses to keep people out and our private lives hidden from view. We take precautions to protect our personal lives from outsiders at home, but do we really do the same online? Do we think we are doing the same online? The recent phenomenon of social networking sites allows us to connect with friends online and share very personal information. Is this information really just seen by our friends, or can other unwanted people see what we post online about ourselves? The answers to these questions some may know, or think they know. There’s a fine line between how much privacy we think we have on social networking sites like Facebook and how much privacy we actually have. Not many people think when they click the “Share” button on these websites. They are releasing information such as what they did in the day, the people who they were with (with direct links to their profiles) and sharing what their future plans are. Pictures may appear on Facebook of you at a party or with your friends which could easily be misconstrued by people who weren’t at the event. And people are surprised when they hear from their Aunt Sally at the next family reunion about the same pictures, embarrassed because they are not even friends with their aunt on Facebook. That may just be Aunt Sally, but just as easily as she found your profile, someone who you don’t even know could stumble upon your profile and learn a lot about you which you didn’t want them knowing. My privacy settings on Facebook are set to “Friends of Friends” meaning that my profile, photos, statuses, and family member and relationships are viewable to Facebook members who are friends with people you have on your friends list. I am comfortable with these settings because I am aware of who could see my information, but my “carelessness” could open up my friends who have stricter privacy settings up to being viewed by outsiders. A simple Google search of my full name brings up a link to my Facebook profile as the first result and under image results, my profile picture, and several profile pictures of my friends with my name mysteriously and unexplainably in the tag of the picture are viewable. The image search not only reveals my pictures and my name, but it reveals my girlfriend’s name, the names of my siblings on Facebook and my mother’s name, who is also on Facebook. At this point, with someone knowing my parent’s name, they could look up in public records my address and find out where I live. The information that shows up on Google about you is random, but it receives most of the information it finds about you from Facebook. Facebook makes it easy to control your privacy settings if you choose to look for them. If you neglect to look for these settings or fail to make sure the settings are right for you, your information could be available on the internet, like mine was. Facebook has three steps of privacy. There is the “Everyone” setting, which makes absolutely everything you post on Facebook available to anyone who has the means of finding it online. There is the “Friends of Friends” setting, which makes everything you post on your wall, your pictures, and your basic info like you name and friends list is available to anyone who is friends with someone you are friends with, leaving other more personal information like your birthday and contact information only accessible to friends. The strictest setting on Facebook is the “Friends Only” setting. This setting makes everything you post on Facebook only on display to the people you choose as friends. “I am very concerned in terms of privacy; I find myself to be even more concerned than others since my Facebook privacy settings are so high.” says senior Liz Gallagher. Her privacy settings are set to the strictest setting, which is “Friends Only”. Unlike most high school students, she is very aware of how to change her privacy settings, even aware of how to create list specific privacy settings to block information from people such as her boss. There are many high school students who are unsure about their privacy settings. Some people just don’t care, and some people are concerned but don’t know how to change them. People should be aware of who can see their information and should think about how their personal may be used or accessed online by strangers. If you choose to change your privacy settings, on the upper right hand corner of Facebook, click the “Account” button and in that drop down list, click “Privacy Settings”. Facebook will give you instructions and descriptions of how to change your privacy settings there. If you keep an eye on your privacy settings, you will be able to prevent other people on the internet from finding more information about you.

Colleges now searching Facebook before accepting students
“Denied? What? My grades were perfect, I did well on the SATs, I know my recommendations were good and I play sports year round. What happened?” This could be the thought process of any teenager after hearing bad news back from a college. These kinds of stories are becoming more and more common, due to Colleges and Universities now looking at Facebook profiles of applicants. This growing trend is one that teenagers, and also parents should be aware of. Their information online can now be held against them during a time in their life when they are already scrutinized and carefully analyzed the most; applying for college. Privacy on social networking websites and Facebook has always been viewed as a problem. If not careful, a simple Google search of your name could reveal a lot about you. It is possible to hide your profile by setting your Facebook to friends only, but for some it may be too late. It is not uncommon to find multitudes of high school students with pictures on their Facebooks from parties with drinks in their hands, or doing other less respectable, and illegal things. Some teens don’t mind their friends seeing these photos, but do they really know that favorite college of theirs they applied to may be looking also? A study of 320 colleges in 2008 revealed that only 10% of them revealed they sift through applicants’ Facebook profiles before they make their admission decision. 38% of those schools thought the Facebook profiles did not work in favor of the applicant. When applying to college students do all they can to stand out, and when colleges are torn between several similar students, a Facebook profile could very well be a deciding factor. This survey was done 3 years ago, and one may wonder if the number of colleges looking on Facebook has increased from 10%. This is unknown, but it more than likely has. Out of the colleges who said they didn’t check social networks, a few said that they have no policy stating they can’t check, they just feel it is an invasion of privacy even though this information is public. Since they don’t have policies against it, they could decide to start checking at any time. Opinion on colleges checking Facebook profiles of applicants seems to be viewed as a good thing. In a school wide survey, 38% of students and teachers surveyed responded yes, colleges should definitely be able to reject students and 41% answered maybe when asked if colleges should be able to reject students based on Facebook content. Colleges who do check social networking sites do it for a justified reason, they want students with good character, and the way they conduct themselves on Facebook is a good indicator of that. Most people are aware of what they post on Facebook, even though some don’t care. Juniors this year should take time to sit down and go through all the content that they are involved in on Facebook and delete any questionable pictures or posts just to be safe. “ I don't allow myself to be in situations where I could be caught doing something I'm not supposed to be doing, and have a picture become pure evidence.” Says senior, Liz Gallagher. She is conscious the content that is on her Facebook and says she has nothing to hide. If necessary, she will ask her friends to take down questionable content posted of her because family members can see her profile in addition to her boss, which brings up another topic. Many people have also been rejected from a job or even fired from a job due to content on Facebook. There are plenty of stories of this happening, even typing into Google “losing job” the first suggested result is “losing job over Facebook”. There are obviously a lot of these cases happening, and all of them involve pictures or comments posted on Facebook. Like a police officer getting fired over posting a picture of his police car at a charity car wash being washed by women in bikinis, or a teacher saying negative comments about her job and community, or a stadium worker employed by the Philadelphia Eagles being fired after bad-mouthing the team management on Facebook. Almost all of these situations involve the person posting not being aware of who could see the posts, and posted out of lack of common sense or while under emotional distress. Should someone be fired for saying they hate their job when they are stressed out? This is another huge debate topic, but the bottom line is people should be aware of what they post on Facebook and be aware it could be used against them when applying to college, for a job, or even while in a job.

Third Parties Divulging Information
We submit to background checks when we apply for most jobs, but when applying to college do we submit to background checks without really knowing? When we submit applications to colleges, we expect that our admission decision be rendered based upon what we give them, and that only. Although the reality is that some colleges try to find information on you from other places, most notably Facebook. We didn’t give consent to colleges to scan our Facebook profiles, so it is very unethical for them to go behind our backs and use content on Facebook against us without us knowing. There are lots of things that ended up being held against people that is open for interpretation. The things posted on Facebook that have caused people their jobs could be viewed differently by two different people. A joke involving crude humor could cost someone their job because someone may not find it as funny as the person posting it thinks, but should this possibly cost teenagers their college education? Teenagers shouldn’t be required to stay politically correct on websites like Facebook, since they are in an environment with their friends joking around. This personality produced on Facebook is separate from their professional personality, where things are much different. When you apply for college, you submit an application. This application includes all personal information that is pretty standard, your address, social security number, high school transcript, SAT scores and what provide character to your application is your personal essay and the letters of recommendation you received. If you chose good teachers or role models to get letters of recommendation from, they should provide information about a great deal of your character. Colleges shouldn’t be looking to your Facebook to find more about your character because it doesn’t show much about your true professional personality. Even pictures, although solid and sometimes incriminating, can be misinterpreted. A picture of you at a party holding a cup could mean you are drinking underage, when you may be having a soda and there is no alcohol to even be found at the party. This kind of picture could keep you out of college, yet you didn’t do anything wrong. Another trend that is becoming popular now is local law enforcement being present on Facebook. They look around at profiles of local teenagers to find pictures of them drinking and contact them via Facebook through a false person, asking where the parties were. This happened in Hopewell last year, where police officers created fake Facebook profiles with fake names and added mass amounts of high school students to be their friends. Their false personalities were two graduated students from the same high school who were dating each other. Daily they would converse with each other to make it seem like they were an actual couple and that their profiles were used on a regular basis. They would also go around the high school students’ profiles searching for pictures of them drinking and asking where the parties were so they could “join in on the fun” If they were to find out where a party was, they would go and bust people for underage drinking. Being passionately against underage drinking is one thing, but an invasion of privacy to find where it’s happening is not right. The police shouldn’t be sitting at a desk on Facebook looking at your profile to check up on you. For most people, they wouldn’t have anything to hide. But the few who choose to have pictures of themselves doing illegal things on Facebook, should they be punished unknowingly because a police officer is searching Facebook? Facebook is a “private” space on the internet to converse with friends. Unfortunately people don’t view it as such and judge people based on a single picture or a single post they make on Facebook.