Social media sites have become a major part of everyday life in today’s society. It is now the social norm to communicate through various online mediums. I think it’s safe to say that one of the most popular social media websites is Facebook. In a study titled, A Functional Approach to Social Networking Sites, it is noted that Facebook, “[…] reached 100 million active users in August2008 and proceeded to quadruple this membership and surpass 400 million active users by July 2010.”(Bryant, Marmo, Rameirez, 2009) This social media website started off as an outlet for college students to connect with each other and by the numbers just stated it is clear that this site is vastly evolving. Facebook has been embraced by almost everyone from grandparents to young children. Facebook is a place where you can post pictures, update statues, write messages on a friends wall, and so on. In the past I have always been careful when posting on Facebook in order to portray myself a certain way to my peers. As the years have past I have to be even more cautious about my post due to the number of relatives and family friends, who have joined and befriended me on Facebook.
I know many of us have those few friends who we wish we
could delete from our Facebooks, maybe yours is your mom, aunt, or little
sister. Not that you don’t want them to
be able to tag you in pictures and write on your wall but you might not want
them to see everything that your peers post or even everything that you post. So far I haven’t had to deal with my parents
joining Facebook but I do have to worry about my mom’s best friend and other
relatives. There has been multiple times
where my mom’s friend or my relatives have informed my mom that I had an
‘inappropriate’ picture on Facebook. My
mom would be told that my skirt was too short, or my Halloween costume was
showing too much skin. Then I would have
to show my mom the pictures, and almost every time my mom was ok with the
pictures, because like I said I’m very careful with what I post and how I
portray myself on Facebook. Even though
my mom would be ok with my pictures she would still insists that I remove the
pictures from my page so her friends or my relatives would not comment about it
anymore.
Having to worry about every little thing on my Facebook
began to really upset me. I got a
Facebook so I could comfortably communicate with my friends and share pictures
with them. Having to worry about my
conservative relatives judgments made want to deactivate my page all together. So I began to look into monitoring who sees
what on my Facebook. It can be tricky
because as we all know Facebook is always changing. For me it is worth it to always make the
adjustments I need too in terms of monitoring who see what on my Facebook
page. Ever since I have done this I have
not had any problems with family friends or relatives going to my mom with
annoying comments about my pictures.
Also, for many adults, who might not have to worry about upsetting
family friends, but might have a job that they need to present themselves in a
certain way Facebook can cause problems such as the ones I had. When monitoring your Facebook post there can
be many benefits. With Facebook being
for many in our society an essential part of everyday life I feel it is
important to monitor who sees what on your page.
One of the most important things to monitor now days is
pictures. They say a picture is worth a
thousand words and on Facebook pictures can be posted of you without your
consent and you can also be tagged in pictures.
With that being said monitoring what pictures that you are tagged in can
be helpful. The following steps can lead
you to monitoring what pictures you are tagged in on Facebook.
·
Sign
in to the Facebook account you want to monitor
·
Click
the asterisk at the top far right of any Facebook page and select Account Settings
·
In
the left-hand column, click Timeline
and Tagging
·
Look
for the setting Review tags friends add
to your own posts on Facebook? and click Edit to the far right
·
Select
Enabled from the dropdown menu
By
following these easy steps you can monitor what pictures you are tagged in on
your Facebook account. When you turn the
tag review on, you will be set
up to receive a notification anytime when someone tags you a picture. You will
then be able to either approve or ignore the tag request after viewing the
photo you are tagged in. It is important
to keep in mind that when you approve a tag, the person tagged and their friends
may be able to view your post. If you don't want your post to be visible to the
friends of the person tagged, you can adjust this setting. Simply click on the
audience selector next to the story, select Custom, and uncheck the Friends
of those tagged and event guests box.
This can help you with being tagged
in unwanted pictures that others may post of you so that they are never
directly linked to your Facebook page.
Not everyone has your same sense of privacy and others including your
friends may post pictures online of you that you would never post yourself.
Then you have to worry about pictures you
post and who can view them. Being in
college there are times when I have wanted to post pictures for my friends to
see that might not be inappropriate to me or even my peers but can be
inappropriate in the eyes of family friends or relatives, especially being from
parts of the south that are conservative.
In order to make sure only people such as your peers able to see
pictures you post on your Facebook follow the steps below.
- Sign in to the Facebook account
you want to monitor
- Go
to your timeline and click on the Photos
section
- Click
the Albums tab
- Use
the audience selector tool under each album to
control who can see your photos
It is important to be aware that not all of
your photos are completely private because the privacy setting for your Cover Photos album is always available to the public. Also, if there is a photo of you in an album
posted by another person of Facebook, the person who posted the photo is the
only one who can change the privacy settings of that album. If for some reason
you don't approve of the photo, you can simply remove
the tag,
ask the person nicely to take it down, or report to the photo to Facebook. Although, each time you personally post a new
photo, you have the option to monitor who views that photo by utilizing the audience
selector.
There also are other aspects of your Facebook page that you
may need to monitor other than just pictures.
There are ways to control who sees your page's posts. To monitor your post you can limit your
post’s audience so only certain people will be able to see it. To limit or target your posts, make sure your
Page has post privacy gating turned on.
To turn this privacy setting on follow these easy steps below.
·
Sign
in to the Facebook account you want to monitor
·
From
the top of your Page, click Edit
Page
·
Select Edit Settings
·
Check
the box next to Post privacy
gating
·
Click Save Changes
By monitoring who sees what pictures or reads your posts this can help
keep your social life separate from your family life and other aspects as well,
in terms of Facebook. Social networks
have become a way of for many and often times it is hard to keep various
faucets of your life separate on these sites, but when utilizing these privacy
settings it can be beneficial.
The blog “How to Monitor the Privacy of Your Facebook” by Caroline Roberts addresses social media and one of the main problems that comes with being involved. The main issue in this informative blog is about the privacy behind user accounts on social media websites. Roberts specifically refers to the social media site, Facebook, in her blog. Roberts states how popular Facebook had become over time with sources that kept track of member activity on the website. Roberts states, “Facebook has been embraced by almost everyone from grandparents to children.” Based on this statement, the reader may infer that Roberts hints in the statement that the issue begins there. Roberts does not say directly, but it is understood that the more popular the site became, the higher the risk of unwanted viewers.
ReplyDeleteRoberts addresses personal experiences with the issue of privacy as an example of why Facebook popularity can be an issue. Roberts specifically talks about times when she could not post a picture or be tagged in one without some relative or friend of her parents confronting her mother about the picture. Despite the fact that her mother did not mind the pictures, the consistency of friends and family confronting Roberts’s mother became a nuisance for both Roberts and her mother. Roberts’s mother finally began telling Roberts to delete these pictures every time one came up, just to avoid conflict. This soon became a problem for Roberts until she finally decided to do something about the tough situation. Roberts’s wanted to avoid the awkward tension of deleting friends yet still wanted to post pictures without an issue arising. Her best solution was to resort to the “Privacy Settings” section of Facebook.
Roberts informs readers of what a privacy setting is and the many different ways it may be used. She also breaks user privacy down into picture and wall post settings. After listing different settings, Roberts then proceeds to describe how to get to and operate the different privacy settings and that’s the key. Knowing how to use the privacy settings can help users avoid uncomfortable situations; although at times, trying to figure out how to use the settings can be difficult with Facebook continually changing and upgrading them (Cranor 2013). This can result in users mistakenly believing that they are sharing information and photos with whom they choose, such as friends and family. However just like Roberts, they soon find out they have “opened their lives to the world” (Cranor 2013). By learning how to use the privacy settings users gain control over who can see their post (Cranor 2013). As a new Facebook user, privacy settings are something I need to familiarize myself with and use.
Works Cited
Cranor, L. (2013) Wall Street Journal. A Guide to Facebook
Privacy. Retrieved July 10, 2013
http://online.wsj.com/article
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ReplyDeleteThe word Facebook at one point in time was a foreign word to most individuals that barely used a computer or the Internet. Now it is a common vocabulary word used in everyday conversation between millions of people all over the world. Facebook has allowed people to connect, reconnect, and maintain relationships through the use of sharing photos, statuses, and information to one another. However, what you put on Facebook can also help identity thieves still your identity. Facebook privacy is very important, and so is what you post.
ReplyDeleteFrank Abagnale is one of the worlds most known identity thieves, and he hopes to warn Facebook users about the risks they are taking on their Facebook profiles. While Facebook makes it easy for one to decide who sees what and what is posted on one’s timeline, there are other factors that many don’t think about. According to the article, “Facebook Users Risk Identity Theft”, just by posting your birthdate and hometown can put you at a greater risk for having your identity stolen (Olivares & Reuters 2013). Once a year on my birthday I receive hundreds of wall posts from my Facebook friends hoping that I have a great birthday. It’s the best day of the year. Unfortunately, my birthday just being listed puts me at a greater risk of suffering from identity theft. Frank Abagnale believes that everyone should refrain from putting their birthday on any social media site due to the risks. Anyone can keep someone from stealing his or her identity. It is very simple. Do not put your birthday or hometown on your Facebook profile.
Facebook privacy is also very important due to the new development of identify thieves. Unlike Frank Abagnale who had to go through a lot of trouble to make checks and identification cards, those that use Facebook can do it in less than a day with very little work involved. “Facebook Profile Cloning” is the new identity thief process. This is a very common scam that millions of Facebook users are unaware of. This process is done by a thief stealing cover photos, profile pictures and information about a user and creating a new profile that looks exactly like the users. According to the article, “Beware: Facebook Profile Cloning Identity Theft”, this new form of identity theft scam does not include hacking into accounts ("Beware: Facebook profile" 2013). The new Facebook will then add all of the friends that the user has also befriended on Facebook as well as all of the fan pages a user has “liked” ("Beware: Facebook profile" 2013). Scammers then use the profile to receive money from a friend of the profile.
Due to identity theft being an increasing occurrence it is important to limit what you put on your Facebook profile and also what you allow friends and the public to see on your account. While it might be nice to show everyone your birthday, school, and hometown information it is also setting one up for identity theft. It is important to be aware of what you post on Facebook and how it could help someone become you without even knowing you.
Works Cited
(2013). Beware: Facebook profile cloning identity theft. Retrieved from http://www.w3bsecurity.com/beware-facebook-profile-cloning-identity-theft/
Reuters. & Olivares, P. (2013, March 21). Facebook users risk identity theft. . Retrieved from http://rt.com/usa/facebook-users-risk-identity-theft-575/