Wondering if you should be concerned about your privacy on Facebook? Get your answers to all those questions here!
In the era of social media, we can share snippets of our daily lives wherever, and to whomever we want. Facebook, a popular social media platform consisting of billions of users, allows us to do just that. We share pictures of our children and ourselves, the places we visit, where we live, where we work, where we go to school, and much more.
With such sensitive details we share online, it helps to consider who can see this information. We take for granted that our data is kept secure and confidential and that we can control who sees what we post. Are we right to feel safe, or are we naive? In short, it’s both. We are right to feel safe, but we are also naive. Let’s discuss why you, as a Facebook user, should worry about your privacy on Facebook and what you can do to minimize worries.
This is an obvious one if your profile isn’t set to ‘private’ and is set to ‘public,’ there is zero opportunity for privacy. Anyone can access your profile and can see your information and details. Better yet, you can make your profile invisible so no one can search your name and find your profile. This doesn’t make your profile invisible to everyone, however, which is why there is still a privacy concern. It only makes your profile invisible for direct searches, not your connections. This means that if you comment on a post, everyone on that post can view your comment and can click on your profile. The same goes for ‘likes.’ If you ‘like’ a post, strangers can see that as well as your ‘friends’ if they were to go to your profile.
Privacy is a concern when you permit third-party apps to utilize and access your information. When you click the ‘give permission’ button when using a new application through Facebook, you create a connection from the application to your profile. When you enable said applications to post to Facebook on your behalf, it can access numerous data such as age, date of birth, location, and even your ‘friend’ list. With this being said, it is helpful to go through your applications and keep a note of which has access to your information.
Facebook users have the option to use their phone number as part of the process to verify your identity when logging into Facebook. The problem with this is that there is no way to make your phone number completely private once you have enabled this. Anyone can search up your phone number and verify that the account belongs to you.
As a takeaway point, your information isn’t that safe when it comes to Facebook. However, you can take the necessary precautions to avoid potential breaches in privacy, such as making your information private and being mindful of what you post.
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