Prof dissects Facebook security policy
Compromised privacy and reputation-damaging photos are just two things Facebook users wouldn’t necessarily have to worry about if they took advantage of the site’s privacy features, according to an assistant professor in the USU journalism department.
Fears associated with Facebook were the topic of emerita assistant Professor Nancy Williams’ Tuesday, Dec. 6 seminar entitled “Facing Facebook Fears” — part of the Lifelong Learning seminar series sponsored by the University Inn and Conference Center.
“This time of year especially, there are so many opportunities for networking — not just business, but family. If it stops us because we don’t understand it, then it’s an excellent opportunity to just learn more about it,” conference coordinator Joy Brisighella said in her introductory remarks.
Williams showed attendees how to change their privacy settings and use other features of the social networking site, including how users can set Facebook to require permission before their name appears in a friend’s photograph.
“They’ll send you a notification instead of an automatic tag,” Williams said. “So it could say, ‘Do you want your (name) in this photo with all these other people playing beer pong, when it’s not really you,’ and you can say ‘No.'”
The information users post on the Internet can affect them in their work and relationships, Williams said. In 2002, a Utah blogger named Heather Armstrong was fired from her job, reportedly for posting stories on her blog about others in her workplace.
Last August, Facebook programmers added several new privacy features, including the option to create multiple groups of friends and control which friends see which posts, Williams said. Now, if a Facebook user wants to write an update for family members to see, he or she doesn’t have to let every Facebook friend see it, too.
Williams said the new features marked a change in the way Facebook officials treated privacy.
“For years, Facebook has ignored public outcry about the lack of control on privacy,” Williams said.
Formerly, Facebook’s default privacy settings were as open as possible, Williams said. This meant if users wanted to restrict who could view posts or comments, they had to go through a complicated process to manually change their settings.
Often, users confronted by the confusing process would just give up, leaving their information open to other users, she said. In addition, Facebook programmers changed privacy features frequently with little or no notice.
Since the August updates, privacy settings are much simpler, Williams said, and Facebook programmers have made it easier to learn how to use these new features.
Williams said Google officials probably deserve thanks for Facebook’s new focus on privacy. Google Plus, the company’s latest attempt to create a social network to rival Facebook, lets users create circles of friends and choose what content each circle had access to.
“The only reason that (Facebook) is better today at privacy is that Google Plus almost beat them at their game,” Williams said. “They reversed Facebook’s stance, and said, ‘No, you should be in charge of everything that has to do with your privacy and who sees your page, and we’re going to make it easy for you to do it.'”
The updates Facebook programmers made to privacy settings in August are similar to features on Google Plus, Williams said.
“They took everything that was really good about Google (Plus) and stole it, which is the wonderful thing about competition,” Williams said.
Competition from Google Plus isn’t the only factor pressuring Facebook officials to reform the site’s privacy features.
In November, Facebook officials made a deal with the Federal Trade Commission, promising to address eight complaints the agency made about the way the site handled users’ information.
Among other allegations, the FTC accused Facebook of sharing users’ personal information with advertisers after it promised not to, according to a statement released by the FTC.
“Facebook is obligated to keep the promises about privacy that it makes to its hundreds of millions of users,” FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz said in the statement. “Facebook’s innovation does not have to come at the expense of consumer privacy.”
Facebook officials agreed to stop misleading users about privacy and obtain consent from users before making changes to the security of their accounts, the statement reported. For the next 20 years, Facebook will be subject to independent audits to ensure the company has a program in place to address security concerns.
Williams said the FTC agreement meant Facebook executives can’t change the rules in the middle of the game and decide to make information public that they originally told users would be private.
Should Facebook officials break part of the agreement, they may not face severe legal consequences, but Williams said she thinks the damage to the company’s public image could have a greater impact.
“Nobody will throw them in jail, but if they don’t abide by their agreement to honor people’s trust, people will leave,” Williams said. “They have alternatives now, and one of those alternatives is Google Plus.”
Williams said she uses Facebook to help students connect in her journalism classes. The students contribute to Hard News Cafe, the journalism department’s online news source, which is open to public scrutiny.
She said she wanted students to have a private, less stressful place to communicate, which is why she incorporates Facebook into her classes.
“They know that they don’t have any private space, so I started building them a closet, so they can rant, rave, exchange stuff and fall apart; and it works really well,” Williams said, adding that the site is also a reliable way to get information to students.
“This way, nobody can say, ‘I didn’t get the email.’ They’re all on Facebook all the time,” Williams said.
Williams said since she requires students to add her as a friend on Facebook for the duration of the course, she makes sure to show them how to limit her access to their content.
Jared Ballard, a junior studying public relations, attended the event. Ballard said if he were required to use Facebook for class purposes, he wouldn’t let professors have full access to his profile.
“I definitely see the benefits in it, but if I did friend the professor, no matter how much I trusted them, I’d definitely limit their access to my account. I might even lift some of those restrictions after I got my final grade, but I would hate to be judged,” Ballard said.
“It would also make it more difficult to complain about having to work too hard when you’re posting party pics. You can’t really say, ‘This assignment is killing me,’ if you didn’t do anything on it that Friday night and they can tell.”
Another seminar attendee Debra Parrish said she thought the speech was effective.
“It was nice for me, being older, having someone who’s not 15 who can (teach) this information,” Parrish said.
– steve.kent@aggiemail.usu.edu