How much personal privacy and security might be lost by voluntary participation in online social networking and what are the possible social and legal implications for individuals and the greater community in the future?
From Internet: Knowledge and Community
It could be that in our fast paced frenzy to take advantage of the wonders of the internet people are ignoring normal social inhibitions and exposing themselves to dangers they never considered when they freely post private information that traditionally would never have been exposed to public view
One recent example is that of a teacher who wrote some diparaging comments about her students. She never expected the comments to become public when she wrote them on a blog she thought would only be seen by her friends. A CBS news account states in part:
"(AP) FEASTERVILLE, Pa. - A high school English teacher in suburban Philadelphia who was suspended for a profanity-laced blog in which she called her young charges "disengaged, lazy whiners" is driving a sensation by daring to ask: Why are today's students unmotivated — and what's wrong with calling them out?
As she fights to keep her job at Central Bucks East High School, 30-year-old Natalie Munroe says she had no interest in becoming any sort of educational icon. The blog has been taken down, but its contents can still be found easily online.
Her comments and her suspension by the middle-class school district have clearly touched a nerve, with scores of online commenters applauding her for taking a tough love approach or excoriating her for verbal abuse. Media attention has rained down, and backers have started a Facebook group..."
Millions of people have voluntarily entered into the world of online social networking. Online social networking creates an opportunity to communicate with family and friends in ways never before experienced. However employers and law enforcement are known to gather information on potential employees and suspects from social network sites. This has and will result in firings, non hirings and arrests.
People have been denied jobs because a potential employer saw information posted on a job candidate's Facebook or other social networking site and believed the information was an indication of questionable character and judgement. Not only have people been denied a hiring opportunity because of inappropriate content on their Facebook, but news reports have indicated several people have been fired because their Facebook postings revealed to a boss that a "Sick day" was really "Skip work and golf day."
When someone posts on sites open to the public they may or may not realize what they are giving up when they do so. The courts have ruled they have no "reasonalbe expectation of privacy" regarding the information they post on public sites. This fact has assisted law enforcement authorities in the filing of criminal charges against people who never suspected they were exposing themselves to this type of legal liability.
Many people fall victim to identity theft and other crimes and the internet has cteated whole new ways for criminals to locate and victimize unsuspecting people. Criminals use information from social networking sites to gather inforamtion such as names, dates of birth, hometown, and other personal information. Then using this information they apply for credit cards and order merchandise in the name of an unsuspecting victim.
Corporations are also using the information people provide to make a profit both with and without the person's knowledge and consent. Google is actively collecting information on every search query entered into their search engine and selling this information to those interested in using it for their advertisment and marketing plans.
Many people who use social networking sites are very careful about who they select as "friends". However if they are not just as careful about selecting the voluntary security features and just as cautious about what information they put on line they may end up exposing themselves to other types of liability. One may recall the news in 2010 about the vacationing couple who "tweeted" on Twitter from their vacation spot and then came home to find their house had been burglarzed.
A 02/20/11 Editorial in The Olympian newspaper had this to say:
Millions of Americans have not protected their privacy on Facebook
George Le Masurier, publisher of The Olympian | • Published February 20, 2011
Chances are you probably have a Facebook account. That means you are one of more than 600 million people around the world connected via the social network site.
Let’s hope you aren’t also one of the millions who haven’t properly protected your privacy.
Better yet, let’s hope you aren’t one of the millions of people who haven’t protected your privacy and who are saying unbelievably brainless things on their Facebook page.
There are those, of course, who think that’s the whole point of Facebook: to exchange mindless and endless banter with a lot of people you don’t really know and some who probably don’t care that much about you.
But why be cynical? Check it out for yourself at a website called youropenbook.org.[ http://youropenbook.org/] The website was created by some engineers who are trying to pressure Facebook into making it simpler for users to protect their privacy.
Their software allows anyone, even those without a Facebook account, to search the “status updates” for certain words or phrases. You can see how many times the word has been used, by whom and when they posted it.
If you’re logged into your own Facebook account while you do the search, you can actually see the full profile pages of those users who pop up because they haven’t secured their own privacy.
Read more: [2]
Facebook has had to revise their privacy policies several times as users expressed dissatisfaction. The only sure way to keep personal privacy and security is to not go online period. But this is not a reasonable option for most people today. To minimize exposure people can install good security software to minimize the effects of key loggers, and other malware but this will only assist with invasive actions by those who would use our Internet connections against us. Legally the emphasis is on the individual instead of the service provider, just check the fine print in the terms of agreement with your Internt Service Provider. So let the buyer beware and let the user of social networks be cautious, because it seems no one will protect our privacy if we do not take steps to do it ourselves.
Some people have concerns that people like Mark Zuckerberg founder of Facebook,may be one of the most powerful and dangerous people in American society. While one may believe their privacy settings on Facebook limit who may view their private information and their online submissions, that information is available for Facebook to sell to marketing firms and the United States Government upon demand. The choice of what to do with all this information is at the discretion of Mr. Zuckererg and others like him at a miriad of other socical networking companies and Internet service companies. This danger to our privacy does not even include the dangers posed bypotential hackers of Facebook's databases. A great deal of Facebook's commercial value lies in its ability to gain information about subscribers and their decision whether to sell that information to marketers.
It is best to live by the adage, "If you don't want it known, don't post it." Perhaps it would be best if people were taught to assume that everything they post on the internet is available to everyone and can never be removed. That assumption is very true, as all it takes is for someone to save a picture or take a screenshot or copy your words or video, and it stays forever upon the internet for all the world to see.
