The latest updated Facebook Terms of Service prompt some questions from me today. I hope you'll leave your opinion about Facebook and its changes in Comments to help others as they confront the issue of using Facebook.
Facebook Questions
1. Do you use Facebook?
2. If so, do you analyze what's happening when you get notices about Terms of Service changes?
3. If you do read the changes, do you then make changes to your FB account?
4. If you once used Facebook and abandoned it, why?
5. If you have declined to use Facebook, why?
The most recent round of changes has created a furor. In fact, there are some Facebook users who have asked the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) to stop the policy changes.
If you want to learn more about the complications of staying on Facebook, visit Facecrooks, a cautionary website with many articles that address the constant Policy changes. If you want to stay on Facebook, the website will teach you how to do it with as much security as possible.
Takeaway Truth
Social Media is big business. If you sign on, your social media account not only contributes to their revenue but also invades your privacy.
I think for those of us who lead fairly isolated and/or solitary lives, Facebook is our neighborhood (although it won't loan you things when you're out or shovel snow out of your driveway). Like in any other neighborhood, you need to pick and choose who you hang with and who you just wave at when you're both outside at the same time. I admit it's a time suck, but I'd miss it if I weren't there.
ReplyDeleteLiz, I like your analogy about FB being like the neighborhood -- hanging with friends or just waving. I guess my problem with FB is the constant change in TofS. I don't like that they're always changing the rules on us. Just keeping up with that is a time suck.
DeleteI don't put personal stuff on Facebook (i.e. phone numbers or addresses). I use it as a tool to get my name out there and connect with people (hopefully readers!!). It's why I don't worry about putting up an author page. There's no reason (at least not now).
ReplyDeleteBut I can see the issues for those people who use it to connect with family members and such. But hey, it's the internet. NOTHING is secure on the internet. People have to start realizing that.
I started with a profile page just to keep up with family and friends, but then readers found it and before I knew it, it was no longer just family/friends. A few months ago, I finally put up an author page, but then the moving came and I didn't have time to do much with it -- like shifting over non-family & reader friends to it.
DeleteYep, nothing is private online -- even if you try to make it that way. Like I always say, never say anything online or email that you wouldn't want published on the front page of the NYT.
I put up an author page when a reader got very offended by something political I passed on. I usually don't, but that one hit close to home and I wanted to share it with my family and friends. I think I lost the reader, who had previously been very supportive. Although I don't MIND that--my politics are personal; it was a personal page--I went ahead and created an author page anyway.
DeleteI try not to say anything in the political or religious arena, but sometimes, Liz, you just have to speak your mind so it's good that you separated the personal from the author.
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