Facebook: what are your security settings?

Last year I joined Facebook partly as the Green party set up a group - and indeed several other local campaigns also set up Facebook groups - but I still haven't got into it - what is all this nudging and sending virtual cocktails? Some I know are literally on everyday swapping videos, messages and more - it has certainly been good to see some folks photo collections - maybe you need to give it more time each week to really enjoy??

Photo: Ruscombe valley

The trouble is I've also ended up joining other schemes like MySpace. There is no end to possibilities - anyway a 'friend' - now what is one of those - it seems almost anyone is a friend now on Facebook even if you only met a couple of times? Anyway as I was saying a friend - a 'real' friend - sent an excellent article by Ari Melber from The Nation about online privacy - see it here.

Here is a flavour of it that made me think a little more carefully about the privacy settings on the likes of Facebook: "When one of America's largest electronic surveillance systems was launched in Palo Alto a year ago, it sparked an immediate national uproar. The new system tracked roughly 9 million Americans, broadcasting their photographs and personal information on the Internet; 700,000 web-savvy young people organized online protests in just days....Yet today, the activism has waned, and the surveillance continues largely unabated..."

Facebook apparently hit a snag in November after it launched Beacon, a "social advertising" program that broadcast users' profile pictures and private activities as advertising bulletins. It has now been withdrawn but sounded terrible - the article describes how it worked: "When a Facebook user bought a product on one of dozens of other websites, for example, the information was sent to Facebook and distributed across the user's network as a "personal" ad. ("Joe Johnson rented Traffic at Blockbuster," for example.) Many users had their pictures and actions morphed into advertisements without their consent, turning private commerce into public endorsements."

There are now plans to an even more open public directory style. Controversy has not slowed Facebook's huge growth: 58 million active members have posted more than 2.7 billion photos - it quadrupled its user base over the past year and is now the most popular website among Americans age 17 to 25. More than eight out of ten US college students registered. Older Americans are also flocking to the site: it draws 250,000 new members every day. Overall, it is the fifth most popular site in the country, ranking just behind YouTube.....People post a whopping 14 million personal photos every single day - then users diligently label one another in these pictures, enabling visitors to see every photo anyone has ever posted of other people, regardless of their consent or knowledge.

Think carefully before you post and have a look at those privacy settings.