Facebook And Its "Privacy" For Users

Facebook is one of the top social media platforms used throughout the entire world and it is a way to share status updates about what were feeling, what we’re eating, check into places we visit and so much more while it is also well known for how much it puts into the privacy of its users to make sure we keep our profiles as private as we possibly can, but is it as safe as we think? From personal experience, people were able to find my profile by phone number or searching my name when one, my number was not connected with my profile, (which I thought it wasn’t), and two, I have my profile set where I can only find people and add them for my convenience. It was very odd that I have my account set to that, but people were still able to find me, but in my Social Media and Society class, I’ve learned how and why this happens and how Facebook and possibly the government can be in on this.

In the book we’ve been reading and discussing in class, “Anti-social media” by Siva Vaidhyanathan, talks about how Facebook disconnects us and undermines democracy. As sad as that may sound, it is very valid. He mentions how though there are already many dangers with having Facebook alone, it is even more dangerous having and holding all of this information on us and describes where they come from which is two surveillance petitions: peers and states. He gives an example for peers and how we handle the pictures we post when we tag someone who doesn’t want to be seen or found outside of their friend group but can be easily discovered even if their settings are to the most private it can get. This can especially become a problem when you are no longer friends with a person and that person can expose all the information on you that they know and can obtain because they know how private of a person you are. Anybody can abuse anybody else’s Facebook profile for the purposes of public shaming, harassing, or exposing personal information to outsiders. In other words, Vaidhyanathan believes Facebook is using us to show how it can create a false version/persona of us while monitoring our every movement and activity we make to use against us in later times.

One situation in the book that really proved how sketchy Facebook can be is when in 2017 Kashmir Hill noticed a very curious phenomenon. Facebook was recommending that she “friend” people she hardly knew or did not even know at all. She brought up certain examples from her readers where they’ve encountered similar experiences that led to awkward or possibly harmful encounters as well. One example would be where social workers and therapists reported being connected with clients despite never exchanging private information with them, but somehow was still able to find them. This is when Hill discovered that a Facebook feature called “People You Might Know” urged people to upload address books from their computers or phones. Those email addresses and phone numbers served as identifiers to Facebook profiles and because Facebook’s social graph traced connections among profiles, the People You Might Know feature had the ability to connect people who were quite distant, estranged, hostile, or even violent towards each other. Because no user could control what information lies in another’s address book, no user could opt out of the feature. This is quite scary and invading our privacy because though some of us may have allowed our address books to be used by Facebook, we did not give them permission to link them to us and be discoverable of each other because some of the contacts could be people we don’t speak to or ended on bad terms with and Facebook is just bringing back bad memories someone does not want to be reminded of. Facebook’s invasion of our privacy needs to stop because this could possibly lead to bigger issues such as murders and kidnaps because information was leaked to the wrong person.

For a few years that I’ve had Facebook, I have an experience quite like this where my privacy was invaded, and I did not give Facebook permission to do anything with my information. I was not aware that my phone number was connected to my profile and that I somehow was able to be found by it as well. People would text me or call me by my own personal phone number and I felt extremely invaded because I did not know who these people were contacting me, and I felt I could do nothing about it. I went to my settings to discover that the setting to be found by my phone number was on and I was very confused because I did not allow that to happen in the first place. I then turned it off and disconnected my phone number and I now use Facebook on my tablet only where my number is nowhere connected to it and the only way to contact me outside of Facebook is by email. It was such a scary thing because my personal information was out there, but I was glad to be able to get to the bottom of it sooner than anything bad could’ve happened.

In conclusion, I believe Facebook has some type of connection with the government in order to gain access to our personal information and share it with others without permission. It is something that needs to be brought up throughout the world and people need to keep close on what they share and who they let see what they share because there is always going to be someone out there who wants to maybe steal our identity, bank info, hack into our profile and so much more. We as frequent social media users just need to be more aware and be safe online and offline as well. Anything can happen and its better to be safe than sorry.