Page 1125 - Wordsmith A Guide to College Writing

“I’m not really worried,” she said. “I have it set up so only my friends 23
can see stuff.”

Not everyone is convinced by such safeguards. For a start, 24

Facebook has reduced the privacy level of its default setting. If you

don’t actively impose privacy, lots of people will have access to your

information. It can also become publicly available if a friend’s profile is
not properly protected. Even if you do try to restrict your profile, the

data that remains public can still give away a lot about you. Facebook,

for example, has no privacy restrictions on your name, photograph, list

of friends and certain other material. By analyzing such data, “spider”

programs can draw up social graphs that reveal your sexuality,

political beliefs and other characteristics. According to Ross Anderson,
professor of security engineering at Cambridge, it can be done even if

you list as few as eight friends. That might not matter so much in

Britain, says Anderson, “but in a country like Iran, where they punish

gays, this is serious stuff.”

Other concerns relate to how social networking sites use your data 25

behind the scenes. Facebook’s privacy policy runs to more than eight

pages and few users will read it. If you do, you will learn that

Facebook “may collect information about you from other Facebook

users”; keep details of any transactions you make; and allow third
parties access to information about you. It also admits it “cannot

ensure that information you share on Facebook will not become

publicly available.”