Privacy isn't very important for me, but I recognize the negative effects sharing too much online can have. This article from The Globe and Mail talks about how sharing too much on Facebook can make it easier for criminals to conduct fraudulent activities.
It reminds me of an experience I had back in high school, my friends and I played a prank on another friend who had a bad habit of falling in love with people online. We made a fake persona for him to fall in love with as sort of an intervention. He, as we expected, fell in love with the 'girl' (who was ironically controlled by another girl he used to have a crush on). It was really mean, I kind of regret it now, but at least he took it well and laughs about it now.
That experience also taught me a lesson. Now, I don't take any thing I see online that seriously. Anybody who messages me could be another person controlling that person's account. For any deep, serious conversations that could potentially be embarrassing I usually prefer voice chat or video chat.
This article proves my point. The article mentions a sex offender that posed as highschool girls in order to get guys to send embarrassing pictures to them. The sex offender would then blackmail these guys for sexual favours.
When I think of privacy online, I usually think in terms of employment. Will posting this picture make it harder for me to get a job? I try to pretend I'm a recruiter and look at my own public profile to make sure nothing is too nasty out there. That being said, I feel I have a pretty balanced online life. Some people go all out and deactivate Facebook, but they really miss out on Facebook's ability to plan events and to allow people to share experiences with each other. It seems like that using services such as Facebook is a trade off between convenience and privacy.
This is a really interesting post. For me, I only befriend people from facebook that I know. If somebody invites me, I'd ask them who they are first. Of course, somebody could just pose as somebody I know (like what happened to my aunt), but the thing is, people should know what kind of information is okay to give out to people. Trivial information like likes and dislikes is ok. However, sites like facebook also asks for D.O.B. email address and full name, which I think can be used to invade one's privacy.
ReplyDeleteNot only that, but also facebook's new look - timeline - makes it easier for people to be targeted. Everything is posted for everyone to see, while the privacy button is so small and hardly anywhere in sight.
I think people who deactivate their accounts do not miss out a lot, though. Sure one can have hundreds of friends, but how many of those does the person actually talk to (v.s. how many they know)? What's the use of "adding a friend" when a person doesn't even talk to them? As for communicating with friends, there's always other alternatives - phones, face-to-face and emails.
Moreover, regardless of age (since you have to be at a certain age to be able to get an account) restriction, there are kids who get an account - which could make them victims (like what you've posted) and the probability of this is higher than those who are of the right age. Children don't really know what's lurking behind the net, and if they do (not just a vague idea), there's probably just a small percentage of them.
I feel that children nowadays are becoming more 'net-savvy'. Even though they might understand truths and untruths on the internet as well as an adult, kids like my nephew, who goes to a school in Macau, are taught with a laptop as their primary education tool. I think soon they are going to be given iPads as well. When I talked to him, he certainly understood the concept of 'trolling' and had a pretty healthy attitude in terms of internet privacy and security.
ReplyDeleteEven people who are just a few years younger than me seem to have a different preffered ways communicating. One thing I noticed was videochat was actually used as much as instant messaging for a certain group of younger friends I had.
I'll probably do a post on communication methods by people with different social/educational backgrounds next. Depends on how many external sources I can get haha