I hear more and more stories these days about folks being burnt by the (bad) privacy default settings on Facebook. As more and more older folks join Facebook, I’m concerned that more and more of the people I care about are going to have embarassing Facebook mishaps– or worse, lose jobs or relationships due to Facebook.
For starters, you should know that Facebook defaults to minimize your privacy– to show everything you have ever posted, or that anyone else has tagged with your name, to everyone you know. In the most recent example I’ve heard, a friend was distressed to find that all her family members can see all the comments she’s made to any of her FB friends.
The most common mishap I hear about is when someone posts a photo to FB and tags it with someone else’s name. In this case, by default the photo will be sent to all of the contacts of the person who was tagged. I think this is outrageous– I can’t think of another social networking site where someone else can send information about you to all of your contacts without your approval.
For some time now I’ve been avoiding Facebook all together. More and more, though, this means that I’m out of the loop of friends and family– I’m not seeing events, photos, and other information I want to see. So I’ve created a new account, to use for reading only, and done some research to make it as private as possible.
I recommend that everyone with a Facebook account look into the default (anti) privacy settings. For starters, take a look at this article on Ten Privacy Settings Facebook Users Should Know.
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