Internet privacy is a complicated issue full of conflicting interests, misinformation and technology snafus. Now-a-days most of the websites want to know or intends to know all they can about you and try to get as much as information possible. But being a consumer generally we try not to share or share as little as possible. ¬¬Social media apps have the biggest privacy issues because so many users think that they are really secure and just approves the apps to use whatever they want and give permission because mostly the user doesn’t take the time to read the privacy policy of the app. Users don’t really take the time out to read out the what permissions they allow to access the app. Facebook and Twitter are couple of the social media which had privacy issues.
IMAGINE a world suddenly devoid of doors. None in your home, on dressing rooms, on the entrance to the local pub or even on restroom stalls at concert halls. The controlling authorities say if you aren’t doing anything wrong, then you shouldn’t mind. Well, that’s essentially the state of affairs on the Internet. There is no privacy. If those creepy targeted ads on Google hadn’t tipped you off.
Everyone Now-a-Days has or had an account on social media app. Few top social apps which are really popular are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and there are few other social apps but still not that popular. Facebook account once in their lifetime. Facebook does brag about their privacy policy that how it is so good and actually how it is private. Over 2.2 billion users and if we think about it how private can it be. Just as one might thing Facebook is private, it is not as private as it claims. Many users it’s not new as a lot of users know that nothing is really private on the internet. The main reason that there are so many issues with privacy and user getting upset is just because many people misunderstand the privacy facts and the settings.
Some of the issues Facebook had in past does include:
• Not all the photos are private. For example, even if you set your profile to be private some of your pictures will still appear as you might have set the individual pictures might have been set to public.
• Comments are searchable many users don’t know that your post or comments are searchable.
• Profile does appear if you search your name on google and you have a Facebook account, 9 times out of 10 chances are that your Facebook profile will pop-up.
• Hidden post can still appear even though if you have it hidden from your own timeline.
• “Like” pages are being tracked, when a user like a sponsored page Facebook tracks that and put that information into a database. But they claim that they use the information just to make your experience better.
• Faceprint database, Facebook has a feature which when you upload a picture it pre-tags people based on facial recognition. This shows and proves that Facebook looks at your information and keeps tracks of your movement.
Now let’s talk about Instagram. Instagram is newer than Facebook, but which is still very popular specially amongst our age of users or youngsters. Instagram has over 200 million users and they claim that their privacy is really high and really good. But there are many flaws in the privacy and most users as Facebook are unaware of the policies until they are violated.
Few problems Instagram has with privacy are:
• Photo default is public, when a user downloads and start using the app, the photo sharing is set to public. Which means that anyone can see your photos until you set to private.
• Geotagging, Instagram is known for geotagging which allows you to put the location of the picture when you post it and it allows other users to see your location and let them know your location or where have you been before.
• Strangers are a big factor too if your account is not set to private, strangers can follow you and look at your picture and stalk you.
• One of the major things is even if the user if they have their account set to private account, pictures they think is private is not really private. User can share the link to the picture you posted to someone else on other social app or if someone else has the link to your picture, they can easily access to that picture and the users account.
Now let’s look at twitter a social app which allows you to post anything within 140-character limit. Twitter has over more than 300 million users so that does arise a question that how private is it?
Just to talk about a few privacy issues with Twitter:
• Location given, some tweets actually disclose the user’s location, and this makes it, so others are able to find out where they are and web sites visited.
• Have you ever noticed that suggested tweets or Twitter accounts reflect the pages that you have recently visited? This is because Twitter keeps a track of the websites you visit and claims to use this information to promote products.
• Contacts taken, you get most of your followers on Twitter from the app taking your phonebook and looking to see who has Twitter accounts. Most of the time you don’t give the app permission to do this.
• Accounts being hacked. There have been multiple accounts of Twitter account being hacked due to lousy privacy safeguards.
Just some tips to help and share your privacy online:
• Think before you post make sure what you are saying reflects who you are and you’re ok with this reflection.
• Also make sure who your audience is.
• Check all your privacy settings double or triple check the settings to make sure that all your profiles are as cut as possible and understand privacy policies.
• Make sure you fully understand exactly what all the privacy policies say so can tell the difference when your privacy is or is not violated
Work Citation
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3078835/t/online-privacy-fears-are-real/#.XGjfoC2ZNQI
2019-2-18-1550483393