Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Privacy on Facebook

Facebook, from my experience with networking sites, has the most extensive privacy features of all. Users have the ability to be as public as they want (even go so far as to have their profiles available on major search engines).
I prefer to be more on the private side, for multiple reasons. It is a well known fact that potential employers search for their prospective employees on social networking sites, and a profile showing that person in a negative light can mean the difference between a job and unemployment. On my account, I have it so that only my friends are able to view my information. On top of that, only other students are even allowed to search for me (so faculty, staff, alum, high school students, and others do not even know I exist on Facebook-- except you, since you're reading this and I'm telling you I'm on Facebook).
I disliked Myspace for a number of different reasons, all having to do with privacy. Myspace is just too full of spam. Even though I was on their highest of privacy settings (which consist of either private or visible... not very sophisticated), I would get messages from strange people, friend requests from even stranger people, and sketchy "phishing" messages that would cause you to involuntarily post things on others' walls (though luckily I never fell for those). It seemed to me that Myspace was more involved in advertising and getting more revenue than protecting the privacy of its users. Not okay.

And-- as promised in the previous entry-- here is the video I found today. I used to watch this show every day with my little brother while my grandmother watched us. She never understood why we liked this show, and she said the characters were "just the ugliest things I have ever seen." She just has no idea what genius is.

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