When it comes to the Internet and social media, you are as safe as you choose to be. That’s the message from Jeremy Anticouni, co-founder and chief technology officer of Make It Work, and therapist Jon Shafer, a tech-savvy parent of two and active member of the Facebook community.
Facebook, the social media network of more than 450 million people worldwide, has been enduring a backlash from users over its lack of privacy protection. Waves of people have deleted their accounts, and many had threatened a mass deletion on May 31. Quit Facebook Day was a bit of a bust, with fewer than 35,000 users reportedly dropping the service, but the company has been feeling the pressure.
Anticouni is among those who bid farewell to Facebook.
Complaints include the obstacle course of Facebook’s 170 different privacy options within six pages of privacy settings. It didn’t sit well with users who endured the uncertainty of a technological hiccup in early May, allowing a select number of users to view friend’s private chats. The glitch occurred only a couple of months after another security scare, when certain users received private messages not intended for them.
“Facebook is still figuring it out,” Anticouni said. “There are still places that inadvertently share your info. I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened again.”
In response to the recent uproar over Facebook security, CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote a letter to tech blogger Robert Scoble.
“I know we’ve made a bunch of mistakes,” Zuckerberg admitted.
Last week, the company unveiled a series of changes, including a simpler privacy-control dashboard and the ability to opt out of the Facebook platform entirely.
“It certainly improves the privacy of your profile and makes it easier to manage,” commented Anticouni, who added that the changes “didn’t go as far as I’d like them to go.”
Shafer looks at the privacy modifications with a different perspective.
“The changes aren’t really significant,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any direct harm in Facebook sharing your information with Web sites.”
Shafer believes the changes in the privacy settings are for protecting identity, and the real harm “is making friends with killers, rapists, and making face-to-face contact.”
He warns that someone can present himself or herself online as anyone, but it can be a complete fabrication and “predators get really good at this.”
The real risk, Shafer says, isn’t the privacy rules, but the anonymity.
“The danger lies within the ability for strangers to contact kids,” Shafer said. Once there is a connection, the stranger can get all the information he or she wants.
Anticouni suggests talking with your children about the realities and danger of Internet use.
“I strongly recommend you “friend” your child on Facebook to see what your child is posting, or have the passwords to their accounts,” Anticouni said.
As a parent and therapist specializing in Internet addictions, Shafer knows of the battles between kids and parents over Internet use and Facebook supervision. Shafer, a marriage and family therapist intern, works with licensed psychologist Suzanne Rapley and they host their own Web site called Internet Addiction.
When it comes to having a parent join Facebook, however, Shafer’s perspective differs from Anticouni’s.
“Parents should understand that kids want to have their own sense of identity and privacy,” said Shafer, who recommends that parents discuss the issue with their children and agree on rules before a child sets up a Facebook account.
“Ideally, parents can permit their kids to have an account as long as they’re transparent,” Shafer explained.
Joining Facebook is one way to keep an eye on things, but even then, Shafer warned that parents might not be able to see everything, as smart, sneaky kids know how to cover their tracks utilizing Facebook’s privacy controls. And, of course, a child could delete his or her parent as a friend at any time.
Both Shafer and Anticouni warn of the enduring nature of Facebook. “Everything is permanent,” Anticouni said.
“Posting information about parties and drinking (may seem) funny, but when it comes to employers, they’re using these resources,” Shafer warned. Often, he noted, employers use it to weed out the applicant pool.
Both noted the ability for someone to locate any online content ever published to the Web.
“The way a Web browser works is it is actually downloading information on your computer,“ Anticouni explained. He suggests turning on private browsing mode, especially on public computers so cookies and images are not stored in caches.
Shafer noted that sites such as archive.org allow users to store records of Web sites, giving anyone the ability to look at online content that existed even years ago.
Users ultimately do not have control over what is posted on Facebook. Friends who have access to photos and other information can easily copy and paste photos and comments, and share them in unwanted ways. Everything ever posted on Facebook can be accessed even after a user deletes it.
Anticouni sums it up:
“If you don’t want it out there for everybody to see, don’t put it online.”
Five Ways to Make Facebook Safer
» First and foremost, discuss Internet safety with your child to make sure he or she is aware that Facebook is a public place and everything posted is permanent.
» Urge your child to only accept Facebook friend requests from people he or she has talked to face to face. If your child has never seen the person before or doesn’t have direct contact with the person, say it’s OK to ignore the friend request. Even if mutual friends exist, don’t rely on others to decide whether this is a safe person to be connected to. If your child accepts someone as a friend, the acceptance grants access to a lot of personal information, so make sure it’s someone your child can trust.
» Suggest your child use Facebook’s new privacy feature to make all information visible to friends only. There’s no reason to make photos and personal information available to strangers. Go to Account, click Privacy Settings, and then choose the Friends Only option under the category Sharing on Facebook.
» Remove your profile from the search results of search engines like Google. Go to Account, then Privacy Settings, then Applications and Web sites, and by the option Public Search, click Edit Settings. Make sure you uncheck the box that says Enable Public Search.
» Don’t grant third parties access to your information. By going to Account, then Privacy Settings, then Applications and Web sites, choose to turn off all platform applications, games and Web sites. Explain that playing these games means agreeing to give publishers access to their information.
Click here for more information about safety on Facebook, or to view Facebook’s Safety Center for information regarding general safety, as well as different pages, directed toward parents, educators, law enforcement personnel and teens.
— Noozhawk intern Lindsey Weintraub will be a sophomore at the University of San Diego in the fall. She can be reached at lweintraub@noozhawk.com.