How’s privacy fading from Facebook?

Recently on 16 November, 2011 newspapers reported about the Facebook Fiasco wherein around 2 lakh Facebook accounts were hacked in Bangalore. Their pictures were morphed and put on pornographic sites and their friends were sent feeds about it. The victims were adversely affected by this incident mentally and socially. They committed social suicide by deleting all their accounts from all the social networking sites after facing so much social embarrassment and mental tension. More than 700 Bangaloreans deleted their Facebook accounts after this Facebook Disaster.

Time and again Mark Zuckerberg updated privacy settings of the Facebook to make Facebook a safer place to interact and share. But this incident clearly shows that hackers are cannier than MarkZuckerberg and that privacy from social networking sites like Facebook is fading rapidly!

With the pervasiveness of Internet and Social Media, Social Networking sites like Facebook and Twitter have become an integral part of our lives. With more than 350 million users of Facebook and most of them spending at least 2 hours on social networking sites daily, it seems as though the world is Facebook’s Oyster. A regular use of these sites has made us vulnerably addictive to them and so we can’t help but post everything that we do or feel in our daily lives on these sites in an attempt to share it with our friends. And this indeed has put our personal, social and professional life’s privacy on stake!

Privacy is a basic right of all the citizens on this earth. Our elders have always advised us to keep our personal and professional lives separate. But with the invasion of Facebook into our lives, achievement of this task seems to be impossible.

Over a period of time innumerable numbers of instances have been quoted about jobs terminations due information and pictures posted on Facebook. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn profiles have become a necessity for job seekers and college applicants. The companies often ask if you are a member on various social networking sites and it’s a minus 10 if you are not. It becomes very difficult to get a job without Facebook and LinkedIn profiles on one hand and on the other hand it is even more difficult to ensure job security with these websites.

One of the best examples is Anthony Weiner, former U.S representative, who lost his position due to pictures posted on social networking site. Companies stalk our Facebook profiles to cross check given information and often judge our personality through Facebook profile, posts, pictures and conversations.

There have been several reported allegations of privacy invasion due to Facebook and incidents of Facebook trading users’ information. Users complain about constant tampering with Facebook’s format and privacy settings. Information and photos uploaded on Facebook is now used as a weapon by cops and advocates as evidence in prosecutions, custody clashes and other crime investigations. Not only this, many relationships have been wrecked due to exposed information on Facebook.
Even German government has been battling with Facebook over the introduction of a facial recognition feature that required users to opt-out, so as to prevent Facebook from collecting their data.

Vigorous efforts have been made by Facebook to provide the users with better privacy settings and so now the user has freedom to restrict desired people from viewing information about them. But the user doesn’t have control or command over what others are posting about him/her. Also maximum users upload all the information about their personal life, unaware of the trouble it could push them into and catastrophic consequences it might have.

From the above instances it is very much clear that our social, personal and professional life is in acute danger due to fading privacy from Facebook. So, be cautious about what all goes on your Facebook status updates, walls and photos. We must not forget that the information uploaded is shared with the whole world which includes not only our friends but also our enemies, bosses, teachers, ex-girlfriends/boyfriends, family, fans, media professionals, children etc. Keeping this in mind can help us keep Facebook at bay from interfering in our personal lives.