Your Private Information is Out? Sorry, It’s Not Facebook’s Fault

Facebook is a dangerous tool; if you don’t handle it with care, you might regret using it in the first place. Sometimes you can read about people being bullied on it, harrased, and there are several cases of identity theft. Although Facebook has strong privacy settings, it’s actually a mask to get even more data from you.

A few weeks ago we stumbled upon a great, yet scary interactive animation Take This Lollipop. To view it, you’ll grant it access to your Facebook profile and see probably the worst case scenario of Facebook stalking. Let’s talk about it and how can you save your privacy and information about yourself.

It’s Not Facebook’s Fault

First things first, the main problem is always you. You can’t blame Facebook (or your Facebook friends) for publishing this weekend’s photos of you. You did something that isn’t right even though you knew that there will be cameras, right? So, talk to your friends and tell them that you really have problems with those photos and don’t want them online. If they decline your request, you can try to take those pictures down with Facebook’s report button.

Next up are your privacy settings. We talked about them a few posts back, so to sum it up: take an hour of your time and set up your privacy settings accordingly.

Logging Out Isn’t Enough

Setting up your privacy settings isn’t enough. It may work if you’re satisfied with hiding your photo albums from people who aren’t your friends, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg of data over which you don’t, but should have control.

Tricking you into having control over profile, Facebook quietly keeps track of your activities all across the web. You might have hidden your data from people who aren’t your friends, but you can’t hide from Facebook. Luckily, or not, almost every site today has a part of Facebook in it; at least there will be a like button in the article.

You need to be logged into Facebook to be able to like something, right? To see which of your friends like that blog or a site, you need to be logged in, so the Facebook could know whose friends it needs to show up. So, if you don’t want to be tracked, all you need to do is logout, right? Not.

It was discovered recently that Facebook still tracks you even if you log out. By using cookies and the data which are stored inside, Facebook can and will get every single detail from your online habbits. There did deny it, but I’d still recommend caution.

Big Brother

In today’s world of technology development, social media and Life 2.0 you need to be extra careful when dealing with stuff you post online. Do you really need to describe your whole day with information on where you’ve been and where you’re going to now?

Facebook and many other Internet giants such as Google are the Big Brother of the 21st century. The only difference between George Orwell’s 1984 and 2011 is that today we gladly agree to be monitored. Facebook needs our private information? There you go, Facebook, help yourself!