Facebook, I think we should see other people. [4/6]
Why is it so difficult for us to part with Facebook ? In my previous blog I touched upon the Facebook Cambridge Analytica Scandal and the fact that people retained hold of their accounts even after finding out what had happened.
Speaking from a personal point of view, I think that we as people have too much data and too much of our identity online for us to simply cut ourselves loose. It is mainly through Facebook that I keep up to date with school related stuff, discover new events, and keep in touch with friends and family. My family from my dad’s side all live abroad too, so Facebook allows me to chat with my cousins, and see photos of family members that I still have not yet met in person.
I was curious to see if my views converged with those of other people, so I set up a survey targeting my Facebook friends. Through this survey I wanted to understand how secure people feel when posting data online, and the effects that the recent news breakout had on them. The 50 participants’ age ranged from 14 to 63, with 22.73% reporting that they felt safe posting data online and 27.27% saying that they did not. The remaining 50% said that it depends, and further questions revealed that the greatest level of discomfort lay in posting family affairs, political arguments, and home addresses online. With regards to the scandal, all the responses expressed disappointment, anger and disgust in what had happened.
However, when asked whether they would be deleting their account, not one person said that they definitely would. Participants however did consider the possibility of other people doing so, since some people would be more affected than others by what was happening.
In the video below, Laurie Segall explains why it is so hard to quit this platform. Even if you do decide to leave Facebook, you cannot look at this application in isolation as Facebook also owns Whatsapp and Instagram.
Any applications that are logged in through Facebook will also be affected, as once your account is deleted, the data linking to this account will also be lost.
So what could be a solution for those that want safeguard their identity without deleting Facebook?
The first thing you can do is check exactly what and how much data is being stored by Facebook. This can be done by going on your Account Settings and downloading a copy of it.
The second thing that you should check is exactly how many applications you have logged in to through Facebook and accepted to share your information with. As I looked through mine, I realised that applications that I had simply spend a couple of seconds on, had access to as many things that Facebook in itself had.
The answer to this was to remove and revoke permissions from each and everyone of them.
Finally although Facebook will still have access to data, it also helps to make your profile private and filter through friends every once in a while in order to increase protection of data against third parties. It’s happened many times that as I’m going through my friends list I come across someone that I have no recollection of ever adding and this can be a threat. There is no point of wanting to keep data private if your list of friends is flooded with strangers.
Before adding someone you don’t know, you should respect that photos you post might involve people besides yourself and it is not fair on them.
Changing tagging settings will allow you more power in controlling situations like this, as you will be able to review and choose whether you want yourself linked to another person’s picture and for it to appear on your Timeline.
However, at the end of the day, many blogs and websites simply say that the solution is getting off Facebook completely. That is the safest way. It is the solution that I believe cannot happen so easily, and if this does happen, Facebook will be replaced by another application that eventually will also place money making and profit as the centre of its operations.
This blog is a project for Study Unit DGA3008, University of Malta