Submitted by Tobias Eigen on 10 December, 2009 - 14:55
I have been spending more time on Facebook recently. Overall it's been a very positive experience and I have to say that Facebook is becoming increasingly useful for networking, keeping in touch and joining forces with likeminded people and organizations for fundraising or awareness building. However, I had an odd experience this morning that raised alarm bells for me.
Upon login to Facebook, I was forced to choose new privacy settings. The process seemed fairly benign and helpful at the time, and gave me the perception that I now have more control over the privacy of my info on Facebook thanks to a new "privacy center". In actual fact, it appears that default options are now changed so that my personal profile info and content I add is now shared with "Everybody" unless I specify otherwise. Everybody now means EVERYBODY IN THE WORLD and not, as it used to be, EVERYBODY IN MY NETWORK. This is a big shift.
I'm not so worried for myself, since I am very open with my private information on the Internet and have not been doing or sharing anything on Facebook that I would not do in public. But the vast majority of people use Facebook as it was intended - as a personal, private "walled garden" for keeping in touch with friends and family. At the very least this can produce situations where people publish damaging or embarrassing information about themselves to the world that they intended to only tell some friends.
However, the Facebook Era of Everybody presents serious personal and organizational risks for Kabissa members working in African Civil Society. If you were not before, you need to start being careful about what you say and do on Facebook. Next time you log into Facebook, pay close attention to the options you choose in the Privacy Center, and close down the default settings to protect your privacy. When you add content, beware of the "Everybody" option set by default when adding content.
Think about it: would you want your Facebook profile and content to appear in Google searches?
For more details, check out these useful posts:
Comments
Mary Joyce of DigiActive.org kindly crossposted to Kabissa her blog post of today warning activists about the implications of the changes going on at Facebook. Some of it is fairly commonsense, some of it is new insights that you need to know. I strongly recommend you read her post and follow her advice: http://bit.ly/6HnLho
I wanted to provide an update a few days after Facebook implemented major changes that affect the privacy of everyone using Facebook. If you are an activist and have not yet "scrubbed" your account of potentially dangerous content and connections, please do so right away. Here's a link to a brief DigiActive post with the key details: http://bit.ly/6HnLho
Meanwhile, I had been concerned that Facebook would "quietly" encourage us all to share our new content from now on with "Everyone" (meaning the whole world, Google searchable) but I am encouraged to see that they are providing suitable warnings. The attached image illustrates this - I saw this alert when adding a comment to my Facebook timeline. Not everybody reads these alerts though, so hopefully I can help to reinforce the message that you actually do need to pay attention to them.
I did a small experiment last week to see what would happen with a link I added that is shared with "Everybody". It was a benign link to a Wired magazine article about fractals. Four of my own friends so far have responded, but I also got two comments from total strangers that appreciated the link. So the new privacy settings are clearly in effect, and are beneficial.
One lesson learned for me with this experiment is that the new settings might not be dangerous as long as we are all careful about the info that we should be careful about anyway. Facebook is, after all, another communications/info dissemination tool like any other.
Another lesson is that we should think about whether or not we share every link or every piece of content with everybody in the world via Facebook. I really have no interest in reminiscing with total strangers about my childhood experiences with fractals. However, I often am glad to reach out to everyone interested about other things.
For example, are you a Facebook fan of Kabissa? Have you told your friends about our Facebook Fan page? Now is a great time to help swell our Facebook ranks - see http://facebook.com/kabissa to fan us up!
Cheers,
Tobias
I just read an important article about Facebook security at CSO Online, a trusted source for information about online data protection issues. I use Facebook and encourage others to do the same who work in Africa, but also encourage you to be "smart consumers" of the free online platform. This goes also for other social networking platforms like MySpace and Twitter - be smart!
Please read the article right now - you will be glad you did! Click: http://bit.ly/8XrQf0
And when you're done, consider how you use Facebook personally and for your work. If you are worried, create another account to use for work and be more careful about who you add to your contacts list, pages you comment on, and other things you do on Facebook for your work.
And if you're VERY WORRIED about risks to your safety due to how you have been using Facebook, you can commit "social media suicide" by deleting your Facebook account. This site will help: http://suicidemachine.org
The Facebook privacy tribulations continue. Today I learned from @bethkanter about "Instant Personalization" which is quite exciting - it is now possible to "like" anything on the Internet (including this page - see the Kabissa dashboard below) - but also poses serious risks for activists and others working on sensitive issues who might accidentally expose information about themselves. Here is the warning and quick instructions to turn it off:
If you use Facebook, please check your privacy settings again - even if you have done so previously. New changes last week made your private information public again. Peter Campbell has written an excellent article on the Techcafeteria blog to explain the new situation well. Here is an excerpt:
Forgive me for continuing to go on and on about Facebook privacy issues, but it's important. There is a tool you can use to see exactly what info is being shared about you via Facebook. To use it, go to http://zesty.ca/facebook and type in your username or userid.
For example, here is the result for me: http://zesty.ca/facebook/#/tobiaseigen - you will see there isn't that much info about me there. That's because I don't actually use Facebook very much for organizing events or connecting with people. Check it out - your results may vary.
There are also results for the Kabissa facebook page: http://zesty.ca/facebook/#/kabissa - nothing that we wouldn't want to share. This is reassuring.
Anything that you see here will likely start showing up in Google searches, which means that it can be used by others to track your movements and who you are connect with via Facebook.
And the source tweet from @info_activism that led me there:
Post new comment