Why Facebook Should Be Legal

The privacy of human being has drastically changed with the advent of internet. On a scale of 1 to 10, the privacy of an internet user is a -1 or may be less. Social Networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace etc are mainly responsible for this privacy leakage. This short paper is dedicated to review the change of privacy policy by Facebook on December 2009 and its impact on public privacy and security.

Modern Americans see privacy as one of the greatest freedoms. When Edward Snowden revealed the NSA surveillance program, the citizens of the United States were appalled by the extent of access the NSA had to personal information. However, according to Dan Tapscott in his essay, “Should We Ditch the Idea of Privacy?” we post just as many details daily on our numerous social media outlets. The majority of the information we freely post is not meaningful and does no harm to us by being public, yet there is a dangerous side to our open-book nature.

It is shown, that one of the most prominent sources that prove a danger toward privacy, is through social media, specifically Facebook. This site alone

Still, we all know that Facebook is becoming more and more commercialized with their "promote" function and Facebook uses our information to advertise to us. The "newsFEED" is not only loaded with friendly updates, but also notifications (that I have to believe are false) that so and so "likes Aeropostale" or whatever company they decide to notify. In other words, we have already outsourced our memories to the internet Cloud, but we still have private memories that are not uploaded, memories attached to sensation and perception that we can sometimes recall or set off with a smell, taste, or touch. These memories are still "ours" and a deep part of our being which allow us to maintain link to humanity.

California's Right to Know Act has been a long-overdue bill in the State's legislature that seeks to force Internet companies like Facebook and Google to disclose the collected personal information and the use of that information (Cohen, 2013). The introduction

Dvorak’s argument is of little conjecture. While the text starts by commenting on Facebook’s “cavalier lack of concern over privacy issues, it continues down a completely different path, criticizing the users instead. This falsely-led introduction brings the readers to believe that the article is about privacy concerns instead of the ignorant mannerisms of the people using it.

Acquisti and Gross point out that the unprecedented growth of online social networks including but not limited to Facebook and MySpace has brought with itself serious security and privacy concerns. In this particular study, the authors found out that privacy issues do not discourage individuals from being members of the network. Further, the authors also found out that even individuals who happen to be rather concerned about their privacy reveal a great deal of their personal information after joining the network. This study is highly relevant to my research as it clearly demonstrates that individuals do not take privacy issues seriously on joining Facebook. As the authors point out, the study in this case secured its support from the "CMU Berkman Faculty Development Fund, CMU CyLab and the Data Privacy Laboratory." Thus in addition to being relevant, the study can also be regarded credible.

A new privacy right, announced by Viviane Reding, represents a great threat to the Internet's free speech. Facebook and Google, for example, could lose up to two percent of their income for failing to remove the pictures that people don't want to be posted anymore. Since the right is not precisely defined, the great conflict between European and American understandings of the new privacy right could occur, leading to a less open Internet. But Viviane Reding, announcing a new privacy right, downplayed it's effects on free speech; she said that "the right to be forgotten is not the right of the total erasure of history", but it's erasure of only "personal data [people] have given out themselves." But regulations proposed three days later turned up regarded not only personal data that people "have given out themselves", but also erasure of any other information that related to a personal data. The chief privacy counsel of Google, Peter Fleischer, notices that there are three categories in the right to be forgotten which are threatening a free speech. The first category reads: "If I post something online, do I have the right to delete it again?" The second category reads: "If I post something, and someone else copies it

The privacy compliance recommends that companies like Facebook should adopt a comprehensive privacy program that is reasonably designed to protect the privacy and security to prevent predictable risks. Another important idea is to abide by the Federal Trade Commission’s rules about keeping their advertising from being misleading and deceptive. Also, an opt-in consent form must be provided to the consumers that their data will be kept private. Overall, any type of changes a company possesses should be disclosed clearly to the

Going along with the privacy issue, some people feel that they no longer want to share personal things with their Facebook friends. Often times, their friends are people that they barely know, whether they went to high school together or they may be a friend of a friend. Users feel that these people do not need to know all of the intimate details of their lives. The same CNN article tells a story about a couple who deleted their accounts in order to reestablish past

Social Media is a current way in which people are using to interact with one another daily. Since the launch of various Social Networking Sites (SNS) its been a huge attraction in a new way to share information with others and correspond with interests of your choice in many different forms. Although social media sites allow users to share information with friends and other sites on the internet, many people are unaware of how their privacy is getting out. Now that the expansion of global connection through these social media networking sites are so highly present in todays society, giving us easy access to information, the lack of one's privacy is being diminished. Everyday peoples privacy rights are

In “Facebook’s Privacy Trainwreck: Exposure” danah boyd reveals the faults of Facebook and how it affects the actions of its users. boyd observes that when users have access to a privacy feature they feel freer to post and comment as they please. When we are in pubic we acclimate to our surroundings and then choose how to we talk and what we share. boyd points out that normally each users actions were not overly obvious until an update to its system that caused the each user to get notifications each time they logged in based on their friends actions. This generated a new problem where the users had to really question and think about what they posted and shared on Facebook knowing that everyone could interpret their actions differently.

Facebook is a well know social networking site that has taken all over the world with over 500 million people using the site. Social networking sites such as Facebook share information about the user over the Internet, where it can be freely accessed by anyone. This is where issues of privacy to the individual arise. As

Facebook is involved in a serious controversy in the United States. And last but not least they are being accused of nothing less than ideologically manipulate the news that serves its users , all this is happening on the campaign trail, so the whole thing takes on an even greater dimension that already itself has.

Employers and schools nowadays evaluate applicants from their social media accounts. For example, the applicant’s Facebook profile could be used to get information such as age, residence and even academic history. What worries Joanna Stern in the article, “Demanding Facebook Passwords May Break Law, Say Senators” is the fact that employers and schools require employees and students to give their Facebook passwords to access their profiles. This practice poses unanticipated legal liabilities. Thus, government officials have rose against the practice. Indeed, requiring a user to share Facebook account’s password for access to the user’s profile is morally wrong and does not meet its intended objective.