Gadfly: ‘Stalkerbook’ is a social creeper
Facebook presents an overlooked threat to network users
I broke my phone last week and, loathe as I was to do it, created one of those nefarious “I need your number” groups. I had not even finished forming the group (I had only typed “broke my ph-” in the group title field) the all-knowing, all-powerful and ostensibly benevolent Facebook immediately informed me that I had 92 friends with their cell numbers listed on Facebook. Creepy, no?
That’s the kind of thing that should send a shiver down the collective spine of Facebook users everywhere. This generation, more than any other, uses different media to express and define ourselves, and although that’s arguably a good thing, we should be concerned who’s looking. When we update our status or post new pictures, we only think of the people who we intend to show, not others who might have access.
One of my friends has fallen victim to the confluence of overly available information and seedy people. A year ago, she found that someone had taken her Facebook pictures and created a fake profile, posing as an attractive girl and having Internet relations with a college-aged gentleman. This crisis was resolved a few weeks ago, and the identity of the imposter was actually deduced in an ironic turn of events: between her screen names and her e-mail, my friends were able to confirm her identity. It works both ways.
Of course it’s a bit alarmist to bring that up, but it remains a true worst-case scenario. Those of us who put ourselves out there 24/7 on our Facebook profiles, blogs or AIM profiles should take note of how easy it can be to misappropriate the information we feverishly put forth.
Facebook has already sold us down the river in a series of moves that began with opening the site up to high school students, and then “regional” networks, which essentially means anyone with a Hotmail account can join in the fun. What once was a moderately safe forum for college students has become a free-for-all which demands our caution and an amount of self-censorship.
Some people have their address on their profile page. With the wrong privacy settings, anyone who is in their regional network can know where they sleep at night. There’s a simple enough fix, of course, and Facebook would have been remiss not to provide the tools to give ourselves a modicum of protection.
Facebook now has more than 64 million active users, and more than 14 million photos are uploaded daily.
Those photos have led to people being cited for alcohol violations at several universities across the country, and there have also been reports of companies using Facebook to research potential employees–us, really, once we graduate. Moreover, there are at least a handful of JMU professors who are on Facebook. It’s great that they want to connect with us, but this adds another dimension to the information rationing we must engage in.
MySpace has largely been relegated to the background of the Internet, becoming a playground for sexual predators and a marketing tool for independent bands. That being said, Facebook has a stranglehold on the legitimate social-networking scene; it’s really a monopoly, and everyone knows how that goes. For a while now the trend has been the development of Facebook applications, which offer us even more ways to express ourselves. You can send your friends “drinks,” turn them into a zombie–even see what they’ve bought at certain online outlets.
The proliferation of these Facebook applications means that there are now more ways than ever to track, identify and define us on the Internet. While Facebook is mainly using this to attract advertisers and business deals, this abundant flow of information is a symptom of a rapidly spreading disease which leaves us all too eager to bare our souls for all to see.
Don’t delete your Facebook account just yet–it’s become almost indispensable means of communication and procrastination–but do review your privacy settings and think twice about how much information you’re throwing out there, and how long it may linger.
Just know that the information highway is a two-way street and, as my friend learned, networking sites can be double-edged swords.
Whitten Maher is a sophomore SMAD and political science major.
