Today I want to chat about just how private you believe your Facebook experience can be.
You know the big flap about privacy that erupts every few months or so? If you feel protected by your privacy settings…. ummm, nope.
Consider this latest bit:
Think your unpublished thoughts vanish?
Think again. To wit:
“…Most of us have, at one time or another, started writing something and then, probably wisely, changed our minds.
Unfortunately, the code that powers Facebook still knows what you typed—even if you decide not to publish it. It turns out that the things you explicitly choose not to share aren’t entirely private….”
Right now, FB collects data not on the content of the unshared posts, but on where and under what circumstances users decide not to post. (Status updates, comments on others’ posts, etc.). According to Slate, a Facebook representative says that this data collection falls safely under Facebook’s Data Use Policy, which allows for collecting data on how users “interact with things.” Yes, they really use the word “things.” Here’s the clause in question:
“We receive data about you whenever you use or are running Facebook, such as when you look at another person’s timeline, send or receive a message, search for a friend or a Page, click on, view or otherwise interact with things, use a Facebook mobile app, or make purchases through Facebook.”
From there, they try to make assumptions about what led the user not to post, so that they can theoretically fine-tune Facebook in a way that removes whatever it is that is causing a user to keep something to themselves…full story at Slate.
Something on which to think. Because if FB can collect data about the circumstances when you erase the post…. why can’t they collect data about the content that just got erased as well?
www.geekosystem.com/
also discusses it as well.
What do you think?
Grow strong,
Barbara Ling
Get Started Here
You’ll love what you learn… Promise!