Facebook Redefines the Word "Private"

Facebook is a very well known social networking site, and with well over a million users and growing we can see the extent of which this social networking site is growing. However, since facebook is a public site, to what extent should users have the right to post private content? Many people will post pictures on the facebook website without the consent of others, this in a way is breaching somebody’s personal privacy. You can apply it to anything you upload to facebook, whether it be an audio recording or a photo. But are facebook being too lenient towards its users? Read this article to dive further into the discussion of this highly controversial issue.

Facebook in many ways breaches people’s privacy by allowing its users to host information, multimedia and more. However, is it right for facebook to allow this? Of course, to many of us, simply hosting a picture of our friends from a night out may seem like a harmless act. In fact, this situation seems to be pretty safe, however this is where the majority of people are wrong, they are just assuming that it is okay to provide pictures of people they know on facebook without consent. This can apply for general information also, and it is wrong that many people impose their views as a substitute for other people’s rights. It is important that people have their rights, but breaching privacy in some cases can be very wrong. Almost anyone can sign up on facebook and lie about their age, occupation and location, and you are leaving people’s privacy in a wide open view for anyone to read. Breaching privacy is wrong, and there is nothing that should say that it is okay to breach somebody’s personal privacy. What do you think? Is breaching privacy right?

When you consider how big facebook is and how easy it is to sign up you can just see how much people are at threat by advertising their lives to the online world. There are options to privatise your account so that only your friends can view your profile, however it does not seem to be a standard option. In fact, it seems to be an option which many people don’t use simply because they are not aware of the dangers of advertising their lives and other peoples live on a social networking site. In fact, there are many dangers of allowing your information to be exclusive and available to view. For example, just consider how easily a sex offender could target someone using facebook, it may seem like a rather extreme case, but it is in fact that easy for somebody to sign up and lie about their identity in order to take advantage of people. So what is your opinion? Is facebook too easy to sign up to? Should it be as exclusive as it currently is?

This then leads to the next part of this argument, in order to prevent the exploiting of people’s private details should facebook enforce stronger privacy rules? The truth is that in order to make changes to this currently vulnerable system that facebook presents there needs to be a public awareness generated of the issue that is allowing peoples information to be exclusive to anybody. Facebook could in fact make the smallest of changes which could enable the biggest differences in terms of how easy it is to breach privacy. The truth is that people believe themselves to be safe on social networking sites, but sites such as facebook fail to mention how vulnerable your data can be when online. Many people believe that facebook should enforce stronger privacy rules to not only generate awareness of the problem but make the situation more of an issue that needs to be dealt with once and for all. But how could facebook go about enforcing privacy rules? Well, for a start they could create a video which explains the dangers of allowing your information to sit idle online which has to be watched before signup. And for existing members they could in fact insert warning messages when it comes to uploading pictures or adding new information. There are many ways in which facebook could crack down on this issue, but in order for any changes to be made there needs to be general awareness of the problem.

When it comes to rules, facebook could do a lot, there could be limitations made on what you can and cannot upload to your facebook profile, though a system to protect peoples privacy may prove difficult to create, it would be very effective in deterring the exclusivity of peoples private information. Enforcing rules can help prevent many issues, not just this particular issue, but privacy is very important to some people and rules sometimes need to be enforced in order to inform people that there will be consequences if the rules are not followed strictly. The debate is open to you, should facebook enforce privacy rules?

Privacy is a very big issue when it comes to social networking sites such as facebook, and it is important that everyone is entitled to their own privacy. By generating awareness of some of facebook’s flaws we can allow change to come and create a better site in both the short and long term.

In conclusion, facebook.com is a continually growing website, and it is worrying to see how people’s privacy is being breached with so much ease. It is questionable as to whether or not facebook users are truly respectful of other people’s privacy and there is not real way to check each and every member one by one, however rules could be put into place to prevent private content being shared to a wide online community. It is usually down to the opinion of the public as to whether any change comes into place, but unfortunately, this issue seems to be offending users who regularly use facebook. But at the end of the day it is up to you to take full responsibility for the data you host on facebook. So then, what is your opinion on this highly controversial matter?