What type of information should go on an email, a private message, and not in a wall post? An article published in EzineMark.Com, “Is your Facebook private? Dealing with security and other freezing errors”, may help us to solve this enigma.
To begin with, when speaking about Facebook and about other social networks such as Twitter or MSN, it is extremely important to keep your most private information scecret (for instance, your bank personal account).
And when making your Facebook personal account, you have to think whether you want to show certain information (your cell-phone number, or your adress) or not; but this (privacy settings) is more a matter to be discussed other time.
In this sense, it is clear that when you write an email or a private message, you normally are sending it to a person you are sure you know. This is to say: you send an email to a person you can rely on, so you can trust on him/her, being sure that, despite sending private information, he/she is going to respect it, not manipulating it or misusing it.
Whereas when you post something, it must be something more general, trying to avoid writing any personal information that may be relevant.
At all events, and despite sending a private message or an email to a true friend seems to be more secure, I would not in any case send any kind of relevant information through them or trough posts. Just in case, it is preferable to preserve, to safe-keep your private information.
Nevertheless, this prevention might not be enough, due to the fact that, according to Alicia Eakin in the CNN, “Facebook site is yet again under fire for leaking user’s private information. This time, the Wall Street Journal is reporting that 10 Facebook applications, including the oh-so-popular and seemingly addictive FarmVille, has been transmitting the private, personal information of its user’s, as well as those user’s friends. Bottom line, tens of millions of Facebookers have been affected”.
At least, it is not users’ fault: one survey carried out by LightSpeed Research shows “that both teens and parents care about privacy and are using privacy controls (to be fair the teens are probably sometimes using them to hide content from parents)”.
Sources:
- Real Tech in EzineMark.com, “Is your Facebook private? Dealing with security and other freezing errors”, published November 1st, 2010 (http://technology.ezinemark.com/is-your-facebook-private-dealing-with-security-and-other-freezing-errors-16cbaf2a74f.html
- Alicia Eakin in the CNN, published October 18th, 2010 (http://newsroom.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/18/facebook-slammed-for-privacy-breach-are-you-at-risk/)
- Fran Maier, “How Facebook privacy settings helped me connect with my sons”, from TRUSTe Blog, published October 18th, 2010 (http://www.truste.com/blog/?p=900)
Álvaro D. Logroño González – Prince Charming
Filed under: Social networks 
