I'll Google your Twitter if you Facebook my Myspace.

By Jarrad Webber 41209141

I am a very social person, I generally like people. I use the term people here, not the general public, who are another category unto themselves. I try not to judge, as I've found that I've made great friendships and connections through people I wouldn't normally associate with. So it would make sense that social networking sites would be perfect for me right? Apparently not as this reflection will show.

It turns out in my experience with these platforms of communication have been more negative than positive. With countless sign ups, questions and details; the only things these social probes seem to do well at is invading your privacy faster than a German blitzkrieg.

It is very strange that people sign up to these social networking sites with friends that already know most of their details, so it seems a little redundant and worrying that Johnny14 can go online and find out what I look like, my friends, family and work relationships, not to mention the faceless (hint hint) corporation that stores all this data. Oh, and that's just from one of these social networking sites. I feel warm and safe already.

Don't know what I'm talking about? In case you were wondering, here's a quick overview of the social networking sites that this course has generously asked us to sign up to with general pros and cons from my own experience.

Google Calendar:

It's an online calendar. You can fill out all your details of where you will be and when.

Pros:

- Useful for managing your time efficiently.
- Google have again mastered simplicity in the user interface.

Cons:

- If you've signed up to COMP3505, you had to make it public. Perfect for those lazy stalkers.

FlickR:

A place to store and display your photos online, as well as share, tag and review other people's work.

Pros:

- Great for photographers to share their work with a wider audience.
- There are some great works of art up there to see.
- Excellent search system with user tags, galleries and groups.

Cons:

- Depending on what pictures the user has uploaded, it can be a privacy problem.
- Possible copyright issues.
- Requires a Yahoo account, which in turn requires a lot of personal details.


Last.FM:

Last FM using a plugin for your music player scrobbles (formally known as records) what music you listen to. It then adds this to their database of other Last.FM users to show what other users listen to.

Pros:

- Can show trends in music such as most played, popular etc.
- Recommends users similar music choices, reviews and artist descriptions.

Cons:

- Have to deal with the plugin every time you start your media player.
- Have some shame albums? It records those too.

Twitter:

A social networking site that only requires one detail - what are you doing?

Pros:

- Useful for keeping track of people (i.e. friends overseas, stalking that girl you like)

Cons:

- Only used when extreme boredom sets in.
- If you enter in your mobile number, it will send you a text message telling you what people are doing that you are tracking. Useful for stalkers on the move, not so useful when you get a text every time someone scratches themselves.

Del.icio.us:

Multiplayer bookmarking. Allows users to share and tag their bookmarks sites that they have visited.

Pros:

- Really useful for research, as someone has probably bookmarked and tagged the information you need.
- Powerful search features with tags.

Cons:

- Have to sort through the useless sites to get to the useful ones.
- Somewhat based on amount of bookmarks received, goes with the theory that X many people can't be wrong? They sometimes are.



Facebook:

Social networking at its finest. Add friends, family, photos, applications all the while filling out details, surveys, questionnaires to link them all together.

Pros:

- Can meet people you have lost contact with through searching for friends.
- Catch up and organise events with friends.

Cons:

- All your information is public to anyone with an account.
- Extremely difficult (if not impossible) to remove your details from the website once there.

Blogger:

An online journal tool that allows for users to post whatever they want within the guidelines of the site.

Pros:

- Share your thoughts with the world.
- Good reporting on overseas trips.
- Free.

Cons:

- Most bloggers lose interest and update infrequently.
- For the most part, no one cares about how your day went except for friends who you'd talk to anyway.

Focus:

The focus for this reflection is twofold: the amount of information required to sign up and who uses this information. Users give up a lot of details when they sign up to a social networking site, whether true or falsified, the amount that sites deem required is generally not thought of as much, and is often left open to the public. Most of the time, this information is harmless and at worst it might increase the spam in your inbox. However with social networking sites such as Facebook, this information has been used in criminal prosecutions and arrests, universities have used it to expel student and lecturers as well as major spam and marketing campaigns. Users have even lost jobs because of information found on their Facebook accounts.

Reflection:

When a user signs up for any of the above they think the service is 'free' and automatically click the 'I agree to the terms and conditions'. I do it, my friends and family do it. In my experience its rare to find someone who will sit and read pages upon pages of cleverly worded text - the small print so to speak.

For example, a user signing up to a Yahoo account needs to fill out their first and last names, date of birth, gender, country, postal code and two email accounts. Not to mention that the marketing box is pre-checked as well as Yahoo reserving the rights to send you information which they deem important. Whose to say that this isn't more spam? Did Yahoo really need your postcode? Your gender? Your date of birth? The sign up really isn't free when you are asked to give personal details. A truly free service would require just a username and password and at most an email for lost passwords. In this case, Yahoo has your information to do with as they please.

A quote from the Yahoo Privacy policy:

“Yahoo! uses information for the following general purposes: to customize the advertising and content you see, fulfil your requests for products and services, improve our services, contact you, conduct research, and provide anonymous reporting for internal and external clients. “

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Essentially, as long as they can benefit from using your information, they will. It goes on further to say that they won't share your information with anyone... except Yahoo affiliates for various uses – including marketing. While not a major threat to ones personal well-being, all I can say is enjoy your spam.

Google Calendar is a better example of registration. It asks for a users full name, desired user name, password and secret question for a lost password. It doesn't ask for a date of birth, gender or postcode. However, in Google Calendar's case, a user can choose to make the calendar public, which means open to anyone with an internet connection, even Google itself will search it. This can be a major breach of privacy, and makes one wonder why people would make their calendar public with such a chance of information falling into the wrong hands.

Facebook is currently the worst offender for grievous privacy breaches, not only by Facebook, but the users and third parties. I highly suggest everyone watch the following short movie:



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The above clip, while sounding very conspiracy theorist, is actually true. The privacy policy grants them full use in sharing and using all your information in whatever manner and with whomever they please. Not to mention the funding to produce such a site came from venture capitalists who were involved heavily with the United States intelligence services. What better way to collect information than for people to willingly fill it out themselves?

So who is using all this information?

The paper Facebook: Threats to Privacy by Harvey Jones and Jose Hiram Soltren states:

“Specically, university administrators are using Facebook for disciplinary purposes, firms are using it for marketing purposes, and intruders are exploiting security holes.”

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Not only that but the site Facebook Addiction 4 lists various cases where Facebook information was used in criminal prosecutions and university expulsions. These are cases where the information was given freely, accessed publicly and caused detriment to either the user or someone involved. Employers are now even starting to screen employees using their Facebook and Myspace profiles. It's quite frightening to think of the possible outcomes that could happen from the misuse of this information. 5

When signing up I was aware of the security concerns, so I decided not to use my real photo, instead replacing it with a photo of my dog. Unfortunately, my cunning plan failed miserably as my friend posted a picture of my friend and I at a concert. Thanks to Facebook, it now links to that as a picture of me and alerted everyone on my friends list. Even friends can be potential privacy breaches when it comes to social networking sites.

What can one do about it? Well, have you ever tried deleting a Facebook account? The way Facebook works, it makes it virtually impossible to delete every trace of your account. This is without the unknown possibility that Facebook or other third parties have already data mined your account and stored it elsewhere. The problem is, Facebook doesn't allow users to delete their accounts, only deactive them, while they keep a copy on their servers, just in case you want to reactive at a later date. There are a variety of methods for dealing with this, such as Permanently Delete a Facebook Account and How To Delete Your Facebook Account. These are two methods that even claim that they aren't 100%, but is better than nothing.

In conclusion, all these normally private details, in this digital age, are out there for all to see. It doesn't make you feel safe that Johnny14 can know your full name, age, friends, family, relationships, as well as sexual, political or religious preference by checking out a couple of sites. While in general, internet privacy breaches result in nothing more than the possibility of more spam in your inbox, more and more personal information is becoming public, through people entering it themselves, or third parties gathering and collecting it. This sharing of information is a key part of social networking sites, but with this information comes possible repercussions. No better way to say it than the internet saying, “Once it's on the internet, it's there for good.”

Anyone else deleting their Facebook after this semester? I know I am.

By Jarrad Webber 41209141

Sources:

1 Yahoo Inc. Yahoo! Privacy Policy. 2008.
http://info.yahoo.com/privacy/us/yahoo/details.html

2 Anon. Does what happens in the Facebook stay in the Facebook? 2008.
http://www.albumoftheday.com/facebook/

3 Jones. H, Soltren. JH., Facebook: Threats to Privacy 2005.
http://www-swiss.ai.mit.edu/6805/student-papers/fall05-papers/facebook.pdf

4 Facebook Addiction. Facebook and the Law 2008.
http://facebookaddiction.com/facebook-and-the-law/

5 Abasolo, D. Fired for Facebook. 2006.
http://media.www.thebatt.com/media/storage/paper657/news/2006/06/28/Opinion/Fired.For.Facebook-2118962.shtml

6 WikiHow. How to Permanently Delete a Facebook Account 2008.
http://www.wikihow.com/Permanently-Delete-a-Facebook-Account

7 A Virtual Exit. Delete Facebook Account. 2008.
http://www.avirtualexit.com/2007/09/05/how-to-delete-your-facebook-account/