Facebook boasts that they have over 250 million people sign into their Facebook accounts daily and over 500 million registered users. With so many people using facebook to connect with their friends and others, it is a great way to have a lot of connections but you also need to be very careful when it comes to Facebook since there are a lot of privacy concerns on the social media site as well.
There are a lot of spammers that create fake accounts on facebook merely to steal your identity and to also steal your personal information. Child predators also create accounts, pretending to be kids and will send friend requests to your child in an attempt to get to know them and to build relationships with them to the point that they can take advantage of them. There are a lot of concerns with privacy issues on facebook and using sound judgment is the best way to use this social media site.
Facebook has tried to shut down some of the spammers along with the privacy issues that are part of the social media site. However even with the higher privacy settings, Facebook is still vulnerable to a lot of attacks. Here are some of the biggest concerns with privacy that comes with facebook:
- Malware attacks from advertisements on facebook
- Third-parties can gain access to your personal information
- Scammers make accounts in order to gain access to your information
- Some of your friends could have connections with other people that are dangerous and may not realize that it can cause problems for you.
It is important to understand that each time Facebook chooses to create a new profile and they desire to make new settings, it will change your settings. This means that upgrading to the new profile could mean that your once private “friends only” account is now changed to a public account and anyone can see your information. Upon upgrading you need to change your account settings back to the highest level possible in order for you to stay as safe as you possibly can with Facebook.
When you post pictures on Facebook, they become the property of Facebook. This means that you don’t actually own them anymore even though they are yours and facebook will be able use them if they need to for police work and other things.
If you are in the running for a new job, you better make sure that your Facebook page is clean and it doesn’t have pictures and language that is unfitting for the job position you are applying for. About 30% of employers report that they use facebook to check up on the people they are interviewing and to make sure their character fits in with the company.
Facebook continues to grow and it looks as if it will continue to keep growing at such an impressive rate. With more users comes more privacy concerns as hackers start to learn algorithms and other ways in which they can get personal information and steal your identity. You need to be cautious about the people that you do add as your friends and limit the amount of people you add. Only add people that are your real friends and not people that you met once, 20 years ago. Everyone has different opinions of what a friend is and sometimes the competition to have more friends on facebook can cause a person to put themselves at risk.
Since every message you write and post on other walls will appear on the main facebook page wall, you have to watch out for what you say. You never want to mention when you are going out of town or where you live along with your kids names and information as it can really cause your privacy and safety to be at risk.