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Safety on Facebook?

Griff

Griff

Hey Man, Nice Shot
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Over the last few months I have read some things, sorry no references, that have me pretty skeptical of privacy on FB. I have next to no FB activity unless it is THP related. I just want to be sure what information I have as private is truly private. I understand it is a great vessel for THP and others that like to stay connected. Deciding if I should strip my profile to nothing but the minimum requirements.

I saw some other FB threads, but nothing that specifically addressed safety.
 
I've read some very interesting articles as well. TBH, I absolutely hate FB.
 
Personally I'm on Facebook a ton. And I can tell you that you can never be too safe. But judging by how much you use yours your privacy is probably safe. If you haven't put yourself out there such as phone number and personal traits. You can check why others see in the settings. I doubt this helped
 
I've been using FB since it's been available outside Harvard and never had any issues.

What exactly are you concerned about?
 
mrvandelay said:
I've been using FB since it's been available outside Harvard and never had any issues.

What exactly are you concerned about?
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My private information being circulated and viewed.
 
Read some more of those articles, Hawk. Activating NoScript in Firefox to block FB scripts to see how it affects my browsing experience. Should be interesting to see what pages I frequent no longer function properly. I'm sure most of the security issues are benign and I'm not saying FB is a bad thing. Just not my cup of tea. I'll continue to support THP via FB.
 
NoScript works well, but can be a PIA.

I'm still on FB as well, but it's one of those things that I feel like I almost have to be on for some reason. I really have no clue why either. I do keep in touch with some friends and family through it I guess.

I do my most of my social networking through Twitter and I mainly keep it about business interests.
 
What private information? Pictures and what you like to do for hobbies?

With just your name and city people can find out where you live, how much you paid for your house, who lives in the house, pictures of your house, where you went to school, etc. it doesnt require facebook to find that stuff.

Take a second to think about what could actually be done with the information you're worried about exposing...
 
Did you read the articles? They shared information either without consent or without seeking consent with advertisers and app developers. Your friends, family, and interests are available for them to see.

The red-star words in the FTC complaint describe Facebook’s statements to its users regarding privacy as “Unfair” and “Deceptive.” It’s worth the read. The complaint raises many complaints in detail. Much of it centers around the fact that the company repeatedly assured its users that if they’ve enabled privacy controls on the stuff they post to Facebook, then there’s no way, no how, no foolin’, for ad networks or Facebook apps to get access to it. Meanwhile, the truth turned out to be more like “Yes, Of Course, and Why The Hell Not?”
Plus, in instances where Facebook promised to streamline privacy settings and make them more effective, the online tools they provided would in many cases cause the user to reveal even more information to advertisers and the public.
Plus, deleting your Facebook account did not, as promised, remove your content from the service.
If only it were this one complaint, too. No, this comes after repeated instances in which Facebook -- in the process of building and deploying new features -- automatically exposed its users’ private content and data instead of asking the user if they explicitly wanted to opt into the new feature.
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The order also said that Facebook, which has more than 800 million users worldwide, in some cases had allowed advertisers to glean personally identifiable information when a Facebook user clicked on an advertisement on his or her Facebook page. The company has long maintained that it does not share personal data with advertisers.
And the order said that Facebook had shared user information with outside application developers, contrary to representations made to its users. And even after a Facebook user deleted an account, according to the F.T.C., the company still allowed access to photos and videos.
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mrvandelay said:
What private information? Pictures and what you like to do for hobbies?

With just your name and city people can find out where you live, how much you paid for your house, who lives in the house, pictures of your house, where you went to school, etc. it doesnt require facebook to find that stuff.

Take a second to think about what could actually be done with the information you're worried about exposing...
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I will answer with a question. What benefit does a FB user gain from putting all that information out there?
 
I get that it's a public venue to share things and much of the responsibility lies with the user regarding what, how much, and with who they share things. That's not really my point though. They flat out did things they said they wouldn't do. If a bank or a corporation did that they'd get hammered.
 
I have a facebook account, but it is only for THP use, and to rep/thank the OEM's and people that support THP
 
Hawk said:
I get that it's a public venue to share things and much of the responsibility lies with the user regarding what, how much, and with who they share things. That's not really my point though. They flat out did things they said they wouldn't do. If a bank or a corporation did that they'd get hammered.
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Good point, Hawk. The concept aside, they have a track record of being deceptive.
 
I use FB to help communicate with family and friends by posting pictures of my girls and things we may be doing with them. Also connect with my golf buddies in posting scores, rounds, how I played, etc. Also have college friends that I communicate with regarding Texas games, Cowboy games, Ranger games, etc. It is a great tool for me to use to communicate to these people. And no, I dont' go on there and post what I'm eating today, how work is going or how I'm having a bad hair day. I don't play any of the games on there, don't click on any ads or other companies logos and don't click on the apps so I can make a picture collage of my photos I've currently posted. If they can find out who I am based on a single picture I've posted then so be it.
 
Nate said:
I use FB to help communicate with family and friends by posting pictures of my girls and things we may be doing with them. Also connect with my golf buddies in posting scores, rounds, how I played, etc. Also have college friends that I communicate with regarding Texas games, Cowboy games, Ranger games, etc. It is a great tool for me to use to communicate to these people. And no, I dont' go on there and post what I'm eating today, how work is going or how I'm having a bad hair day. I don't play any of the games on there, don't click on any ads or other companies logos and don't click on the apps so I can make a picture collage of my photos I've currently posted. If they can find out who I am based on a single picture I've posted then so be it.
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I'm really the same way and I'll acknowledge I'm a complete hypocrite regarding everything I've posted here since I have an account. It's just shady. If my bank sent information about what I was buying to companies that paid them so they could market to me more effectively I'd close my account tomorrow.
 
I get that they're sharing information they said they wouldn't. There shouldn't be anything on your Facebook page you wouldn't want the public to see or know. The only information they have in their possession to share is name, email, address (maybe), and pictures/hobbies.

And as far as banks getting caught doing stuff like this and getting in trouble - they have gotten away with much, much worse.

Other businesses have done worse with more than facebook has.
 
I put the bare minimums and rarely actually post. I only use it to keep in touch with family and a few friends. I work in the IT world at a high level. I can tell you this with Facebook. Never put anything on it you wouldn't want the entire world to see. We've used it to catch employees lying about illness, stealing from the company, and on and on. Most of the time it's because they have someone at work as a "friend" and that friend has another friend that they don't realize their information has been exposed to. Nothing you put on the internet period is private.
 
Other businesses have done worse with more than facebook has.
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That doesn't make it ok though. It's just crazy to think about. Imagine having 800,000,000 million people to sell to advertisers. That's crazy clout.
 
Wolfepaw said:
We've used it to catch employees lying about illness, stealing from the company, and on and on. Most of the time it's because they have someone at work as a "friend" and that friend has another friend that they don't realize their information has been exposed to. Nothing you put on the internet period is private.
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Yep! Work related issues I can see being a big problem with what people post! I do have some work people as 'friends' and they are below me in title so I really am careful about posting knowing this.
 
You need to change your privacy settings. Make sure that it is https and not http when you log on. Every time FB updates they change it back to non secure.
 
Hawk said:
That doesn't make it ok though. It's just crazy to think about. Imagine having 800,000,000 million people to sell to advertisers. That's crazy clout.
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Crazy indeed. It's amazing how a simple idea can morph into such a huge phenomenon. FB is one of those things that's so ubiquitous, it's become a verb. Like google.

I'm a pretty light facebook user myself. Only using it to keep up with friends and such. Like was said before, don't put anything on there that you don't want public. Further, you can shore up the viewing privacy of your account in the settings. There's some not so obvious stuff too. For instance, I don't let people tag me or check me into places.

Doesn't help that they've reset the privacy settings before either. I actually log in and check every once in a while to make sure that they haven't wiped them out...
 
I hate to break this to you but all of your personal information is out there anyways and anyone who knows how to look for it can look up just about anything about you.
 
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