Most people are unaware of
the extent to which people have access to their personal information on social
networking sites, and how that information is being processed. Most of the information, such as personal
interests, favorite movies, games and TV shows, and even the town you live in
or the place you are hanging out for the afternoon is given to a multitude of
online data processors or individuals and re-routed straight back to your
homepage for targeted marketing and other purposes, being stored in databases
by people worldwide; most people think to blame the social networking cites,
even though it was their own choice to create an account and share the
information, and they should consider issues such as this before signing up for
a site, and definitely take a portion of the blame for any negative repercussions.
Nearly everyone in this day
and age have created a Facebook or a MySpace or a twitter, or even
a YouTube or Google account—all of them have at least some personal
information on their profile, and all of it is available to a multitude of
people if they know where to look. A combination of people willing to share extremely
personal information and the social networking sites not giving a 'disclaimer'
of sorts telling people exactly how much of their information will be free game
for advertisements, scammers, or even hackers or stalkers has caused social
networking privacy to become a major public issue. People have tried to protest Facebook
several times, but it isn't protest that will solve the problem--it's not
just Facebook that has to change, but people need to realize that if
they're willing to type down such things as personal interests, birth dates, or
the locations they are currently at every ten minutes, people other than their
friends will be able to see it, and if they don't like it then they shouldn't
post it. If people don't begin to realize the true core of the problem, internet censorship will be
soon be considered the cause, and the functionality and availability of online
information could be at stake because of the misinformation of these sites'
users. Users should educate themselves and be aware of what personal
information they are providing to the sites and who can see it—they should be
aware that posting something controversial online is like saying something
controversial into a microphone in a large room: you shouldn't be angry at the
microphone for being turned on, you should be angry at yourself for being dumb
enough to speak into it in the first place; also, social networking sites
should begin giving a disclaimer, something much more thorough than a
fine-print, read-it-if-you-want, agree to terms and conditions page—they should
have people be tested, asking them if they actually know exactly how open their
personal information is to become, and exactly how many people are going to
have access to it and who they are, so only those who are comfortable saying
everything into the microphone actually join the site.
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