Coming soon – Facebook Privacy and Security Upgrades!

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If you’ve logged into Facebook over the last few hours, you may have noticed an open letter from its founder, Mark Zuckerberg.  The letter discusses forthcoming improvements to better safeguard the experience and participation of users on the site.  We at the Cyberbullying Research Center highly approve of these changes, and believe they will assist in reducing online harassment and youth vulnerability to victimization.

While they will be discussed in greater detail after the rollout, Zuckerberg indicated that regional networks will be eliminated, since many networks have thousands and millions of members and therefore allow more openness and visibility in profiles than may be preferred by some users.  Secondly, they will be consolidating all of the privacy and security settings into a few (or maybe even one?) page.  Currently, they are scattered across numerous screens, and I would say it takes users a solid 15-20 minutes to go through each screen and completely lock down their profile to their preferences. Finally, Facebook will allow us to control who out there sees any and every single individual piece of content (note, picture, video, etc.) you upload or create.  This is fantastic, and has been heavily requested for months now.

Facebook has impressed me with the granular level of control it has historically allowed individuals, and this feature will take social networking security to the next level.  Presumably, their privacy initiatives and mechanisms will also serve as a model for other Web 2.0 sites to emulate.

12 Comments

  1. For many, Facebook has become a necessary part of their everyday lives. Most teen facebookers are so attached to this new social media website, it’s the first thing they check when they wake up and the last thing they’re on before they go to sleep. They rely on it for entertainment, to help pass the time, to stay updated on the latest gossip, and to notify people about their daily activities. Many facebookers feel the need to update their status in an effort to keep their friends updated on how interesting their lives are. They fail to realize that by doing this, they are creating opportunities for potential robbers to make a move at the perfect time. In a similar story aired on CBS, a couple was planning a trip to a local concert. The wife updated her status, notifying her Facebook “friends” that for that particular night, the couple would be at a concert in a neighboring town at 8 pm. Though this seemed like a harmless status update to her, it’s what led to her house being burglarized. Aware that the couple was not present at the house, one of her Facebook “friends” saw this as the perfect opportunity to break in. People need to be more aware of who they have on Facebook and what they post. They need to pay more attention to their security settings to make sure only limited people can see their profile.

  2. For many, Facebook has become a necessary part of their everyday lives. Most teen facebookers are so attached to this new social media website, it’s the first thing they check when they wake up and the last thing they’re on before they go to sleep. They rely on it for entertainment, to help pass the time, to stay updated on the latest gossip, and to notify people about their daily activities. Many facebookers feel the need to update their status in an effort to keep their friends updated on how interesting their lives are. They fail to realize that by doing this, they are creating opportunities for potential robbers to make a move at the perfect time. In a similar story aired on CBS, a couple was planning a trip to a local concert. The wife updated her status, notifying her Facebook “friends” that for that particular night, the couple would be at a concert in a neighboring town at 8 pm. Though this seemed like a harmless status update to her, it’s what led to her house being burglarized. Aware that the couple was not present at the house, one of her Facebook “friends” saw this as the perfect opportunity to break in. People need to be more aware of who they have on Facebook and what they post. They need to pay more attention to their security settings to make sure only limited people can see their profile.

  3. I found out about spokeo from a friend on facebook and it was quite disturbing that all my information was there for any and everyone to look at. I did follow the directions to remove my information from the site but it still creeps me out that my home address and picture of my house was made public. This site makes it easy for stalkers to prey on their victims and its sad that these sites exist. I am not sure how my information got on the site but it has made me remove a lot of information on facebook and made me view social networking sites differently.

  4. I found out about spokeo from a friend on facebook and it was quite disturbing that all my information was there for any and everyone to look at. I did follow the directions to remove my information from the site but it still creeps me out that my home address and picture of my house was made public. This site makes it easy for stalkers to prey on their victims and its sad that these sites exist. I am not sure how my information got on the site but it has made me remove a lot of information on facebook and made me view social networking sites differently.

  5. Social networking sites are being misused now days. I personally get on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace to stay connected to friends and family. Social networking sites have much to offer to people who want to stay connected to family and friends by being able to share photos and communicated through various types of messaging. But some people are taking advantage of these opportunities. On Facebook random people add me and I have no idea who they are and we have no common interest. I believe that they either want to get their friend count up or they are just a spam account. With random people on Facebook friend requesting you have to be careful and make sure that you block your profile from random people looking at it. As an athlete at FAU I have to make sure that I put my settings on private and make sure I know who is my friend because there are people out there who will try to expose things about you that they see on your Facebook.

  6. Social networking sites are being misused now days. I personally get on social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace to stay connected to friends and family. Social networking sites have much to offer to people who want to stay connected to family and friends by being able to share photos and communicated through various types of messaging. But some people are taking advantage of these opportunities. On Facebook random people add me and I have no idea who they are and we have no common interest. I believe that they either want to get their friend count up or they are just a spam account. With random people on Facebook friend requesting you have to be careful and make sure that you block your profile from random people looking at it. As an athlete at FAU I have to make sure that I put my settings on private and make sure I know who is my friend because there are people out there who will try to expose things about you that they see on your Facebook.

  7. Privacy is an important issue in the technology world today. Facebook, MySpace, Tweeter, and other social web sites have its “privacy” manual but is it really private? No, nothing on the internet is private. Everything you upload or download from the internet can be seen and monitored by people, private agencies, FBI, anything with power and important as the government. For example in high school there was a kid who was obsessed with one of my friends, they both were friends in MySpace but after she knew he was obsessed with her she deleted him. This boy was very quiet, low self-esteem, and shy didn’t talk much to anyone but one day we were in class and he opened this notebook and he had a bunch of my friend’s pictures from MySpace. Even though they weren’t friends he manages to get her pictures from MySpace and print them. Nothing is private, everything you upload to the internet stays in the internet, and it never goes away.

  8. Privacy is an important issue in the technology world today. Facebook, MySpace, Tweeter, and other social web sites have its “privacy” manual but is it really private? No, nothing on the internet is private. Everything you upload or download from the internet can be seen and monitored by people, private agencies, FBI, anything with power and important as the government. For example in high school there was a kid who was obsessed with one of my friends, they both were friends in MySpace but after she knew he was obsessed with her she deleted him. This boy was very quiet, low self-esteem, and shy didn’t talk much to anyone but one day we were in class and he opened this notebook and he had a bunch of my friend’s pictures from MySpace. Even though they weren’t friends he manages to get her pictures from MySpace and print them. Nothing is private, everything you upload to the internet stays in the internet, and it never goes away.

  9. Some websites ask you for too much information. I remember when I first signed up for Facebook under my information it asked for my address, phone number, email and all this other stuff. I'm paranoid so I never filled that in but I noticed on my other friend's pages it displayed their personal information. I'm all about catching up with old friends but they don't need to know this type of information about me. There's a way to make it private but not everyone was aware of that at the time. Now imagine what teenagers can do with someone's phone number? There's a way on google to call someone from an unknown number, so it would be very easy to prank call "friends" not to mention that kids can also create a fake IM account and text phone numbers from there. My friend recently told me about this Spokeo website where you can pull up people's information. I searched for myself and the only thing I found was some old slide show I made of my nephew like 4years ago but that's still upsetting. How did this website pull that? That same friend said she found her aunt address, photos and even pictures of her house. Its websites like this that make it easy for kids to bully each other anonymously.

  10. Some websites ask you for too much information. I remember when I first signed up for Facebook under my information it asked for my address, phone number, email and all this other stuff. I'm paranoid so I never filled that in but I noticed on my other friend's pages it displayed their personal information. I'm all about catching up with old friends but they don't need to know this type of information about me. There's a way to make it private but not everyone was aware of that at the time. Now imagine what teenagers can do with someone's phone number? There's a way on google to call someone from an unknown number, so it would be very easy to prank call "friends" not to mention that kids can also create a fake IM account and text phone numbers from there. My friend recently told me about this Spokeo website where you can pull up people's information. I searched for myself and the only thing I found was some old slide show I made of my nephew like 4years ago but that's still upsetting. How did this website pull that? That same friend said she found her aunt address, photos and even pictures of her house. Its websites like this that make it easy for kids to bully each other anonymously.

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