Post At Your Own Risk: Teens Need To Be More Concerned About Internet Privacy

BY KAYLA LOKEINSKY

In an era run by technology, our lives are increasingly on display. Anyone in the world can know where you are, who you’re with, or what you’re doing just by checking your Facebook status or your latest Tweet. Whether by hacker invasion or our own ambivalence, our digital rights have never faced more peril than right now. With an unlimited amount of information available to anyone with a computer, we must ask ourselves: have we lost all privacy?

As of the end of 2011, there were 800 million Facebook profiles, 175 million Twitter accounts, and nearly one billion blogs out in cyberspace, according to Forbes Magazine. In the month of May 2011 alone, Americans logged 53.5 billion minutes on Facebook, which equals about 101,000 years. With all this time spent logging everything you do, say, and think, Internet privacy has become a major issue.

However, do today’s youth realize just how public the Internet is? According to a study done by Sid Yadiv of the Venture Beat, they don’t. In a survey he conducted in 2010 on North American Internet users, the results showed that only 30 percent of Americans ages 18-29 agreed with the statement, “I am very concerned about my privacy on social networking sites.” In comparison, 39 percent of social network users ages 44-53 agreed with that statement, showing that young people are less concerned with Internet privacy.

“The Internet has been growing in the public consciousness for around two decades,” Yadiv said. “Over the past few years, tools like social networks have come about as a means of connecting people. What is interesting is that there is a whole generation of people who have grown up with it and on it, while there are generations beforehand for whom it’s a relatively new concept. Consequently, attitudes are going to differ when it comes to the use of social networks. And naturally, older people are going to be more aware and cautious.”

With most social networking sites such as Facebook and Tumblr, when users hit that checkmark that says they understand the site’s privacy policy, they skim through the pages of small font and hit the accept button without reading it in full. However, by not looking at the privacy policies carefully, personal information could be misused or spread on the Internet.

“On the whole, I do think that publicly revealed personal information can be misused more by people you know than complete strangers,” Yadiv said.

Facebook has made several big privacy changes in recent years, and each time they have made a change, it has given users less privacy when it comes to the data they post on the site. The latest change Facebook added was a new profile feature called a timeline, which will be mandatory for every Facebook user “in the coming weeks”. On the timeline, your profile information dating back to as early as your first ever status update can be seen by simply scrolling down your page.

“It’s so weird that any of your friends can look back at your profile information before you even met them,” sophomore Bethany Williams said. “I don’t understand why Facebook is making everyone use the timeline when some people don’t want that much information out there for the world to see.”

Government regulators have recently begun sharing alarming information about Facebook. They believe that the site has misled its users about the sanctity of their personal information. In November 2011, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a complaint accusing Facebook of exposing details about users’ information without getting their legal consent. The FTC charged the social networking company with passing along potentially sensitive details to advertisers and software developers prowling for customers.

Not only can your information be released to advertisers, but more importantly, to anyone who wants to find you, including criminals. If your Facebook profile is public, anyone can see what school you go to, what city you live in, even what sports teams you’re on. Also, by seeing where you last “checked-in” or “tweeted from”, any stranger with Internet access and a Facebook or Twitter account could come and find you.

Take the case of Ronald Rhodes, for example. In 2010, the 22-year-old registered sex offender was arrested and charged with the kidnapping and rape of an 18-year-old woman. After meeting her through Facebook, he formed a friendship with her and then committed brutal acts of violence against her. This relationship all began with a friend request from a stranger, which led to the destruction of a young girl’s life.

If such dangerous things can happen from sharing personal information online, why do we continue to do it? According to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, privacy is no longer the social norm.

“People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information, but also sharing it more openly and with more people,” Zuckerberg said while giving a press conference in San Francisco. “That social norm is something that has evolved over time.”

Social networking sites are just another place for people to display what’s going on in their lives. They want their friends to see the pictures from their last road trip, and for people to like their status or re-tweet their latest Twitter update. The point of social networking sites is to share, so putting private information has become the social norm, despite the high risk factor.

“When I post online, I don’t even think about who’s going to see what I say,” sophomore Stephan Belinsky said. “Even though I know that anyone with Internet access can see what I post, it doesn’t really matter to me.”

However, teenagers must remember that although they may be sharing information with their “friends” online, anything they post will remain online for the world to see. Whatever is posted on the Internet, whether it’s deleted or not, never goes away. It’s your safest bet to assume that there is no privacy online, and to post at your own risk.