Facebook Privacy

As I am leading a discussion on privacy next week in class, I'm going to address Facebook now to avoid getting into the social networks discussion then. Facebook released new terms of service on February 4. (The Consumerist Blog that broke the story.) The change was not immediately noticed, but now an uproar from the facebook community has caused the terms to be recovered to the pre-February 4 status. Based on the news stories and the group Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities, I've thought a lot about how this affects privacy on the internet and the intellectual freedom that should (?) be afforded to social networks.

I think there are a lot of things that need to be learned by young and old about online privacy and the fact that it doesn't really exist. There are companies out there that are more intelligent about what can go on in their industries centered around the internet and let's face it, they are calling the shots. But people can still do things to protect themselves. It starts by teaching people (not just teens or children) that privacy on the internet is an ideal, but not a reality. Common sense and the fact that it is a smaller and unsafe world is crucial to individual safety.

I've also been thinking about the intellectual freedom rights that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg could argue he has. He created a site where people agreed to his terms and his ability to change them at will. Shouldn't he have a right to the information for which he has created a medium and given a way to upload information to his site? While the pictures and posts may theoretically belong to the person who posted them, doesn't the entire site belong to Facebook, Inc.? These, of course, are just questions that I'm still mulling over; I don't know if I'll ever really reach a conclusion. But I cannot argue for my rights while expecting someone else to potentially give up their rights. Whatever those rights may be.