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| | | The Perceived Problem | |
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< | According to Facebook's own statistics, the social network has over 300 Million "active users." Users upload over 2 billion photos and 14 million videos each month. Given the enormous amounts of data published on Facebook, the stories of public humiliation that has occurred when information was intentionally shared but inadvertently made accessible to the wrong person, are hardly surprising. Running a Google search for the term "Facebook privacy" links to articles such as "10 Solid Tips to Safeguard Your Facebook Privacy,"which provides suggestions on topics like how to prevent your pictures from appearing in advertisements. Still, it seems that these suggestion, as well as Facebook-related public humilition, are only a small piece of a more complex issue. "Privacy" in the sense of preventing an unwelcome viewer from seeing a photo of an adult Facebook-user engaged in activities that he believes only the people present will ever see, can be easily protected by refraining from posting embarrassing photos and information, and by becoming "friends" with only people with whom the user is willing to share personal information. The public conversation about Facebook and privacy has addressed only part of the Facebook-based privacy problem.
Facebook Applications and Minor Users
A significant but less obvious danger is that by partnering with various other companies, Facebook will learn so much about its users that "privacy" becomes a thing of the past. This problem is magnified by the fact that children may join Facebook, potentially creating records of their behavior and preferences over many years before they are adequately equipped to make the decision to share such information. Because users voluntarily share so much information with Facebook, and because there are some apparently convenient reasons for allowing other sites to link to Facebook, Facebook has great potential to destroy what’s left of our private lives. The most dangerous aspect of Facebook as it relates to privacy may not be Facebook per se, but the multiple information gathering applications that run on Facebook. | >
> | According to Facebook's own statistics, the social network has over 300 Million "active users." Users upload over 2 billion photos and 14 million videos each month. Given the enormous amounts of data published on Facebook, the stories of public humiliation that has occurred when information was intentionally shared but inadvertently made accessible to the wrong person, are hardly surprising. Running a Google search for the term "Facebook privacy" links to articles such as "10 Solid Tips to Safeguard Your Facebook Privacy,"which provides suggestions on topics like how to prevent your pictures from appearing in advertisements.
In addition, Facebook has the capability to share personal information with third parties. These problems are magnified by the fact that children may join Facebook, potentially creating records of their behavior and preferences over many years before they are adequately equipped to make the decision to share such information. Because users voluntarily share so much information with Facebook, and because there are some apparently convenient reasons for allowing other sites to link to Facebook, Facebook has great potential to destroy what’s left of our private lives. The most dangerous aspect of Facebook as it relates to privacy may not be Facebook per se, but the multiple information gathering applications that run on Facebook. | | | Facebook could know where and when a user goes out for a run, which high school seniors schools in the NCAA are recruiting, every action that a user makes while on Amazon and where users plan to travel on spring break. As the data analysis technology behind each of the companies that links to Facebook becomes more sophisticated, the information that the companies' applications share will reveal increasingly personal information. | |
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< | This information sharing means that Facebook and any third parties with whom Facebook shares information could eventually make near perfect predictions about what a user would and would not like to purchase. This is a useful marketing tool, but is also information that could potentially be used to determine a user's political affiliations, lifestyle choices, hobbies, career path, etc. As the information available from these applications increases, Facebook will own information providing an increasingly complete picture not just of what a person looks like or does (as can be found from Facebook without applications) but also of formerly "private" aspects of a person, such what a person dreamed of doing with his life when he was young. Currently, Facebook is allowed to access to an extensive database of information because many individual Facebook users grant it permission to access their data. This means that young users, deemed "minors," and prohibited from making many important choices for themselves, may give away their privacy before they realize what sharing certain information may ultimately mean. | | | Though the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act protects children under 13, it does not cover minors ages 13 to 17. Under COPPA, websites may not collect "personal information," including "hobbies, interests and information collected through cookies or other types of tracking mechanism" about children under 13 without parental consent. However, the five years during which a child is minor but not protected by COPPA provide ample time for him to share information over which he may later regret having lost control. Though 18 may seem like an arbitrary age, it is the age at which the U.S. as a society and political community treats people as adults in other important ways (such as allowing them to vote, treating them as adults in the criminal justice system, and requiring jury service, to name a few). |
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