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That thing that used to be called privacy

If you use Facebook, you might have seen a spate of status updates claiming that the user’s posts are copyright and cannot be used by Facebook (or anyone) without the account holder’s written permission. Of course this is useless as when you sign onto Facebook you sign away all rights to privacy and all those nice things so that Facebook can use whatever it wants from your profile to try to make money. Simply putting a new declaration on your status does not change the terms of Facebook’s service, which it changes whenever it feels like it to benefit itself.

The issue is, of course, more than simply a matter of what Facebook does with your data (which is not private, no matter what you may think). It is a matter of privacy in general and the erosion of it specifically. The worst offenders are not the social media sites that collect all your information, but those individuals who fill out whatever information the screen in front of them asks for without thinking, and then continue to update the site (and other social media sites) with details of every aspect of their lives. Being cool can be dangerous.

The best example of how careless people are can be seen in this YouTube video ( http://ow.ly/fDTTx, which redirects to http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=F7pYHN9iC9I). It is an advert from a bank in Europe. This clip has been seen by over 6 million people, but I wonder how many people actually pay attention to it

If you are the type of person who puts personal information on social media, and in this case Facebook specifically – things like pictures of your kids – you should go to www.takethislollipop.com (I had trouble running it in Chrome, but it works well on Internet Explorer). The site was introduced at the launch of the 2012/13 South African Cyber Threat Barometer. It simply takes random information from your Facebook profile and incorporates them into a story. You have to sign in via your Facebook details, but it is safe, if not somewhat traumatic.

To practice good online behaviour, simply go to Facebook’s Privacy Settings, click on the 'Ads, Apps and Websites' option and remove www.takethislollipop.com to revoke its access to your Facebook data – after you have watched it.

Of course, this is fun to watch, but it shows Facebook fans just how much information they are putting out there. So, how much of your life is online? And given the environment we live in, perhaps the more important question is, how much of your kids’ lives are online?

Andrew Seldon – Editor

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