Editorial: Monitor mark you make on Facebook

By Central Florida Future Editorial Board

Facebook is undergoing some serious changes, and this has raised some concerns among privacy advocates.

Facebook’s planned redesign will change the way third-party applications work by integrating them directly into a person’s profile page. This means that Facebook will now share updates from applications automatically, as opposed to having to actively click to share updates.

Users are now going to have to be more careful regarding which applications they are using and how they are using them. Everything from exercise routines, private media consumption and other habits could end up being posted directly to one’s profile, according to a report from the Washington Post.

Facebook is an important social network that is now used for a variety of things. People are no longer using the network simply to reach out to friends. Facebook is often used to join clubs, find apps and even possibly look for work. Some employers make it their practice to check an applicant’s Facebook profile to get a sense of their habits and tendencies.

A 2008 survey from Careerbuilder.com found that 20 percent of companies check the profiles of people’s social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. In 2009, that number jumped to 45 percent, according to a study conducted by Harris Interactive for Careerbuilder.

After reviewing the content of a profile, 33 percent of employers decided not to make a job offer, according to the 2008 survey.

With all of the new purposes that Facebook now serves, it is critically important to stay abreast of how Facebook’s new privacy settings work. Not understanding these settings could lead to not having a tidy Facebook profile, which more and more employers are now reviewing as part of their hiring process. Users could also unknowingly be giving away information that they would rather not have people know about.

One new feature of Facebook has raised particular concern among privacy advocates. Timeline acts as a sort of digital scrapbook, showing all the information that a user has put on Facebook in chronological order.

Mark Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, is opposed to Facebook’s new changes. Rotenberg said the primary problem with Timeline is that this new change has been put in place after the company has already acquired user data.

Given these new changes and others that could potentially come in the future, it is important to know exactly what your privacy settings are and how to use them. Pam Dixon, executive director at the World Privacy Forum, has said that her organization has heard numerous complaints from consumers who are unfamiliar with these new settings. Facebook has new options in place that allow for privacy limitations on every post, as well as likes and comments.

Facebook is a social network with many advantages to it. It gives people the ability to reach out to long lost friends and to network with potential employers. Keeping an eye on your privacy setting is important, as not knowing them could affect your social or professional life. Even if you know your own privacy settings like the back of your hand, you could very easily have a friend who doesn’t know his settings and tags you in less than flattering photos. Keep a close eye on your privacy settings as you continue to use Facebook.

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