Facebook for Privacy

Privacy and Technology by Gary Marx brought up some good points about privacy that not only related to me, but that I have never really thought or considered before. When I think about social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook, I think of your own personal site where you have the freedom to do almost anything you want on it. You can find old friends, share videos with other people, send people gifts, and upload your own pictures. This all sounds like fun and a totally risk-free place to share who you are with people. The one thing I didn’t consider until recently is how much of your privacy is thrown out the window when you sign up for these kinds of social network sites.

When you create your account, you have to provide information about yourself so the network can recognize you. Your name, age, birthday, and other various pieces of information are wanted, and people tend to just fill this out without hesitation. But what they are failing to realize is that when you put your name on the internet, it goes everywhere no matter how secure or safe a social network sites claims to be. For the group of people who do realize that their personal information is made more easily accessible by others through one of these sites but choose to do so anyway is very interesting to me. They are willing to give up their right to privacy to join the new cool place to be on the web. People are willing to look past the dangers of exposing their privacy on the web to be a part of the new social network that’s climbing to the top.

I can remember when this happened with the end of Myspace being the top site, to Facebook becoming number one. People were having a lot of problems with Myspace. News casts and reports were warning parents to watch out for their kids who use Myspace. They claim that it was not a safe place to be on the web. Why were they saying this? People were meeting with others that were not safe people to be around (pedophiles, criminals, and other dangerous people). People’s personal information was being taken from them through Myspace and finally resulted in people not using the site as much as they did before. Then along came Facebook, the new hot place to be on the net which claimed to be nothing like Myspace. People, including the ones who went through problems with Myspace joined Facebok because it was the place to be. They knew that this site had all the potential dangers of Myspace (since it is just another social networking site) yet they sent in their personal information and signed up. Why are people so inclined to give up their privacy to join these social networking sites?

So what does this do to a community? If a community gets so used to the idea or very comfortable with the choice of giving up privacy for the new hip thing it opens the door for countless other opportunities where people will easily give up their privacy to get what they want. As a community that submits so easily to have their privacy taken away can lead to many problems communities face today including patient confidentiality. For those who aren't aware that they are trading their privacy for fun, they might not be aware to the fact that they are giving up their privacy for other things outside of social networking.

I think it all boils down to being part of the new cool thing which makes you popular. Kids start smoking at a young age so that they can be “cool” and “fit it” with other people. These kids are endangering themselves health wise for the same reasons people join social networking sites; to fit in and b a part of the current cool spot on the web. Despite all of the dangers and the total loss of privacy, people are still willing to give it up for Facebook. I don’t know if education people about this subject will really do anything, seeing how so many users of these social networking sites are well aware of their loss of privacy when joining these sites, yet they choose to do so anyway.