Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Controversy on Facebook

In Delaney’s (2007) article entitled “The sinister side of social networking”, he states nowadays many people share their personal details and talk about their private lives on social networking sites. Facebook is a social networking website which was created on February 4, 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg (Wikipedia, n.d.). In those days, Facebook was a social networking site for just Harvard University students, but now anybody can use it only if people make accounts. Also, according to Rampell (2008), now Facebook’s users number 67 million, and still increasing now. In fact, now, users can create applications and the number of applications aremore than Facebook Company creates, so Facebook comes to be able to serve users many functions, which Facebook originally did not have (Wikipedia, n.d.). However, because of this, the site is so developed that it is difficult for Facebook to control by itself. Therefore, finally, Facebook comes to have faced many problems of leaking private information. Delaney claims that originally, Facebook was a communication space for friends on the net to communicate with each other. However, nowadays, the original style is changed considerably. Facebook affects users because it shows a lot of individual private information. The information contributes to many crimes in real life. According to Delaney (2007), users’ private information is stolen by burglars to get account numbers, by advertisers to succeed in business, or by strangers for reasons of abuse. In fact, Facebook is just concentrating on expanding its functions, so it does not care about security so much. That is why Facebook’s security is so weak. Facebook fascinates many people with its many interesting applications, but in the end, it also gives users much concern over where their private information has gone. Therefore, Facebook now, should think about the solution and act to protect human rights.

First, Facebook leads to many crimes in real life. Although Facebook holds a lot of users’ valuable information, Facebook does not protect this information properly. Because of this, now, many crimes related to Facebook have happened. Also, Facebook does not show users the risk clearly and openly, so most users do not perceive the crimes and do not receive them seriously. In fact some users show their private information extremely openly and correctly without hesitation. Even though Facebook offers some protectors for users, users who do not know the risk very well ignore the systems and show anybody their private information involuntarily. In “The sinister side of social networking” the author states “Details such as date of birth and where you work provide valuable clues for identity thieves, while status updates saying you are going on vacation could be tantamount to giving burglars the key to your house” (2007, para. 5). Therefore, especially these kinds of people might be caught up in crimes. Applications of Facebook are getting better, while the warning from Facebook to users is still weak. Now, Facebook has a system in which users can create applications, and the function is still growing. In “What Facebook Knows That You Don’t” the author states this application is also one of causes of the leak of private information (Rampell, 2008). Because of expansion of the applications, it is hard for Facebook to protect users’ private information. Moreover, Facebook also has a system in which people send email directly if they do not know each other. Therefore, Facebook should tell users the risks and it needs to make users prepare to avoid the risks.

Second, Facebook contributes to success of other companies by giving users’ private information. Nowadays, internet is a new advertising system instead of television, newspaper and other traditional media. Through the rapid spread the internet, the advertising way has become very effective among people. That is why nowadays many companies advertise their business on websites. In “Beware of Facebook’s Beacon?” the author points out “companies can buy advertisements to support their new presence on Facebook, and these ads can be targeted by things like geography, gender, age, and any type of info that users have entered into the Facebook database” (2007, para. 3). By doing this, customers often see their products and come to feel familiar with them. Therefore, customers and companies are getting close. Also, Hirsh (2007) states that Facebook gives users’ data collection to partner websites and moreover in the future Facebook will extend the website partner. Therefore, surprisingly, companies can see user’s information without being allowed by users. The system helps companies know what customers need now, and moreover helps them succeed in business. That is why Facebook offers users’ information to the companies which participate on the data collection. In fact, most of the users do not know this fact, and ironically, the private information of users is leaked by Facebook without asking anything. Therefore, Facebook should protect private information properly.

Third, the problem is that Facebook’s function is sometimes very obscure. At first, Facebook did not make a deletation system properly. Therefore, when users want to leave Facebook, users are caught up in complicated situation. In “Losing my Facebook” Blackwell (2007) said it is hard to delete information because of extending developers of Facebook. Moreover, Blackwell (2007) said that after users deactivate their account, Facebook keeps it and stores it to avoid trouble. Therefore, in fact, the number of users is unclear. The number might include people who have left Facebook already. Facebook does not need to keep accounts. Facebook should delete the accounts of people who left already. Also, Facebook should not make a deactivation system, but a deletion system which users can delete by themselves whenever users want to delete. Moreover, Facebook should show the whereabouts of private information after users leave Facebook clearly. The fact that whereabouts of accounts after users leave Facebook is obscure is also not well known, so only people who faced that situation know that. However, before people become users of Facebook, Facebook should offer this information and organize clearly.

Opponents of the idea that Facebook is responsible for its a risk argue that it is dependent on people. They say that people can avoid the risk as long as people watch out. Surely, they avoid some risk of many risks by using protectors. However, unfortunately, most users do not know what really is going on in Facebook. In addition to their fact, Facebook can not control itself. That is to say, now Facebook’s scale is too big to control itself, and it can not control users’ movement, either. That is why now Facebook faces a danger of management. Facebook needs to make users be careful about several choices and not to be too honest and not to show too much information correctly. They have a responsibility as an offer because they hold millions of bits of private information. The scale expansion of Facebook meets people’s demand, but it surely leads to users’ risks. Therefore, Facebook should recheck its management policy and reconsider human rights, and then Facebook should be narrowed to manage by itself. When Facebook acts on this, Facebook can manage properly.

In conclusion, these days Facebook has become a famous social networking website all over the world. Facebook holds a lot of individual private information, so it should protect people’s information more seriously, and also it should deal with many problems properly and right away. Therefore, Facebook should tell users about risk and what is going on in Facebook properly and honestly to avoid crimes, should protect the private information of users more than now, and should offer information and organize clearly. Of course, users should be careful about leaking privacy information by themselves, but Facebook as a sponsor should manage safely for their customers. If Facebook keeps this style, Facebook will not last very long. Now, expansions of Facebook make Facebook face many problems which it has caused by itself. This leaking of private information will be a global issue. Therefore, Facebook, now, should think about the solution and act to protect human rights.



References

Blackwell, L. (2007, December 8). Losing my Facebook. Learn On Line. Retrieved on April 27, 2008, from http://learnonline.wordpress.com/2007/12/08/losing-my-facebook/

Delaney, B. (2007, September 7). The sinister side of social networking. CNN News. Retrieved on March 31, 2008, from Lexis-Nexis.

Hernandez, M. (2008, April 4). How do you know your love is real? Check Facebook. CNN News. Retrieved on April 8, 2008, from Lexis-Nexis.

Hirsh, J. (2007, November 14). Beware of Facebook’s Beacon? CBC News. Retrieved on April 26, 2008, from http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/tech/hightech/facebook-beacon.html

Naughton, J. (2008, January 6). The Networker: Why Facebook wants to corner the market in personal info. The Observer. Retrieved on March 26, 2008, from Lexis-Nexis.

Rampell, C. (2008, February 23). What Facebook Knows That You Don’t. washingtonpost. Retrieved on April 8, 2008, from Lexis-Nexis.

Rushe, D. (2007, October 28). Advertisers leap into Facebook. TIMES ONLINE. Retrieved on April 26, 2008, from http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/technology/article2746840.ece

Wikipedia. (n.d.). Facebook. Wikipedia. Retrieved April 27, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook

No comments: