Monday, 15 October 2012

Facebook Messages on Timeline

Recently Facebook users were unhappy to find their personal messages had been published for all of their friends. 900 million users around the world, 18 million in Canada had their personal messages between each other published to their "Timelines". Facebook maintains that these are not personal messages but I believe that is just a cover up. I personally observed numerous messages that I had not been intended for the public eye that were on my "Timeline". I believe that this is just a glimpse into what could happen if our personal information was leaked. This is not your social insurance number, home address, or credit information it is information you have sent to another member of Facebook with the idea that your message was private. Privacy on Facebook is a reoccurring debate due to its hierarchy of social media and the vast amounts of personal information people freely share over the Facebook servers.  This is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to information leaking on Facebook which will be addresses in numerous blogs this semester. 

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2 comments:

  1. Phill Waisman7 November 2012 at 11:27

    So was it the simple fact that Facebook thought that these were not private messages? What was to gain about revealing this private channel, like what did they gain it doesn't make sense to me...

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  2. Phill Waisman24 November 2012 at 09:05

    I actually got some cool information about Facebook as well. This article from the Queens university newspaper has some cool findings. "According to facebook.com, approximately 50 per cent of users log in daily, sharing a total of 30 billion pieces of content worldwide every month." That is simply ridiculous in relation to this next stat. "An October 2010 investigation by the Wall Street Journal discovered that certain Facebook apps had been ‘leaking’ identifying information to dozens of Internet tracking and advertising companies." Social networking IS the 'new thing', everyone is producing online profiles and if advertising companies are able to track information like this, it would be scary to see what professional hackers could do.

    http://queensjournal.ca/story/2010-12-02/supplement/problems-online-privacy/

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