How secure do you feel your information really is? Facebook has many perks—albeit the reasons have become a little clichéd. People can connect with old friends, stay in touch with family and create and invite people to events and parties (while saving paper and stamps in the process). The site has also become an all around way to make a boring day a little less monotonous.
Then there are the downsides. Facebook has become a breeding ground for people to “facestalk”—a term used to describe people who check and monitor other people’s activity on the site. Most users are unaware that what they think is private really isn’t. And with privacy settings constantly changing on the site, it makes for easy facestalking.
The website, co-created by Mark Zuckerberg, has become the biggest social media networking websites in the world, boasting 400 million active users. That means people who use the site can be easy pickings for criminals if they aren’t careful.
People who use the website should be aware that Zuckerberg hopes that one day everyone will live in an open society. According to David Kirkpatrick’s book, The Facebook Effect, COO Sheryl Sandberg was quoted as saying:
“Mark really does believe very much in transparency and the vision of an open society and open world, and so he wants to push people that way. I think he also understands that the way to get there is to give people granular control and comfort. He hopes you'll get more open, and he's kind of happy to help you get there. So for him, it's more of a means to an end. For me, I'm not as sure.”
This article appears in May 20-26, 2010.