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Facebook As a Stalker’s Paradise?

Posted by Nick O'Neill on October 1st, 2007 12:28 AM

According to the Associated Press:

The social networking Web site Facebook has been warned that it could face a consumer fraud charge for failing to live up to claims that youngsters there are safer from sexual predators than at most sites and that it promptly responds to concerns, a spokesman for New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said Sunday.

I have to admit that I also have seen Facebook painted as a safer social network thanks to their privacy settings. Honestly, I think they are safer although they are not foolproof. Users need to take the proper precautions to prevent their profiles from being visible to other users within their networks without being a friend. Even Jeffery Lerner of the New York Attorney General’s office believes that “Facebook’s contention of being safer than most sites was accurate when it started out as a closed site 3 1/2 years ago.” Since then, Lerner suggests, Facebook’s safeguards and complaint response times “aren’t what they once were.”

Rupert Murdoch in addition to recognizing the migration of MySpace users to Facebook has commented on Facebook’s privacy. Murdoch states that “on Facebook you’ve got people’s addresses and names and all that. If you wanted to stalk a young woman, that’s something that would be very easy on Facebook.” Do you think Facebook’s privacy features are sufficient?

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This entry was posted on Monday, October 1st, 2007 at 12:28 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Viewing 3 Comments

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    I think that when people join a regional network, Facebook should either default to not having the profile exposed to everyone in that network or warn the user that their profile will be visible to everyone in that network and offer the option to change that right when they join.

    Having your profile exposed to everyone in a college network may make sense, but to everyone in New York - it does not!

    Raphael
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    Raphael has a good thought, one that I think Facebook ought to run with. Frankly, though, Facebook provides excellent privacy controls, and it is not their responsibility if a user fails to manage those settings and properly implement his or her privacy controls. It is quite easy to allow no one but one's own friends to view their information, and even to make your profile non-searchable to any non-friends (I have several friends who do just that).

    Simply receiving unwelcome messages does not constitute a violation of a privacy covenant on the part of Facebook; such is akin to suing a city because someone makes an inappropriate comment to you on a public sidewalk... and you actually respond.
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    Why in God's name would you EVER put your home address on a public forum? Anywhere? EVER? Especially if you're a "young woman?" That's just plain *effing* stupid.

    Facebook's privacy settings are great when they're configured appropriately. But I remember reading somewhere that fewer than 15% of users actually make any changes to the default privacy settings, even when they join a regional network.

    I like Rafael's point about keeping your profile private to regional networks you join. I think FB should implement that standard very quickly. It should be an easy fix.

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