Tommy Collison

I caught Questions and Answers last night, because Damien was on it, and they were talking about Facebook privacy, which is sufficiently techie to garner my interest.

In what soon became apparent to be The Dermot Ahern Show, named because the man got about half the total screentime of the show, they talked about general current affairs, and I may have slightly tuned out here, content with watching people’s reactions on the awesome liveblog they had going.

My ears perked up, however, when they mentioned Facebook. One of the audience questions, and the one I’ll be addressing in this post, is:

Do you think facebook users who’ve made personal details readily available waived their rights to privacy?

My answer is: Yes

Those who have only begun reading the blog won’t remember one of my posts, which carries the same sentiment I share when it comes to this: it’s Phones in School

Here’s the part I feel is relevent:

The moral of the story is that whether or not you agree with the rule, or it’d be your rule were you in charge, while you’re in that school, you have a responsibility to follow their rules, even if you disagree with them.

That’s it exactly.

By using Facebook, you’re agreeing to abide by their rules, and if you don’t agree with them, you shouldn’t use the site. There’s none of this ‘oh but it’s only this rule….’ malarkey, you either follow all their rules, or you don’t use them, there’s no middle ground.

If you’re in Lidl, Dunnes or Superquinn, you’re not going to bring the Weetabix up to the counter and say ‘I want 37 in this pack of 36 Weetabix’. You just don’t do that. There are 36 in that packet, you can’t change that! Okay, FB are on about privacy, and I’m on Weetabix, but the moral is the same: it’s laid out a certain way, it’s not up to you to change that to suit your own needs.

Also, let’s look at what privacy FB has at the moment, as it’d be unfair to say there was none. Facebook, like most social networking sites, they have two profile settings: public and private.

Public means anyone can access your info, including (if you put it up) birth year, phone number, orientation and marital status.

Private means anyone who you’re “friends” with can access your info, including (if you put it up) birth year, phone number, orientation and marital status.

Now, you may think that by putting your profile, you’re protected, however: have you ever accepted a friend request from someone you didn’t know in real life, or hadn’t met recently?

I’ve always maintained that blog comments are very flimsy, as you’ve no proof whatsoever that the person is who they say they are. I could make a comment on someone’s blog saying I was ‘Barack Obama’, and if I had an official looking email address, how’d you know it wasn’t him, and was me instead? Obviously, I wouldn’t take him, I’d take someone more plausable. OK, you could try an IP check, tracing it back to a location, but if I was actually in Washington D.C, and had made the comment from somewhere within, say, 2 blocks (to use the american unit of distance :P) of the White House, how’d you know?

It’s the same with Facebook, you’ve absolutely no proof people are who they say they are, unless you meet the person and ask them: Are you on Facebook, and did you add me?

Now, because of that, people with malicious intent now have access to your details, through no fault of Facebook. It’s like you leaving the door unlocked in your house last night and trying to sue the door company for being robbed.

I’m not trying to scare people away from using Facebook, I’m merely advising caution:

Don’t use it if you’re paranoid about stalkers and the like, as anyone can really see what you put up, no matter what your profile’s set to.

Before we go, isn’t privacy relative? One man might think putting a surname on their site was just asking for trouble, while others have their entire address. Even taking myself as an example, in my first ever blog, I didn’t use my name, I went by a pseudenom, “Eoin”. Now, I use my full name without really thinking about it!