A large portion of the population in the world uses Facebook in their daily lives.  . Individuals use social media for a variety of purposes: to pass time, maintain relationships, meet new people, keep up with current trends, and gather social information (Quinn, 2016).  Facebook is aware of this and uses our “likes” as a way to enhance the experience and make it personalized to the user by selecting advertising that tailored to each individual. 

There have been some claims that this is a breaching in our privacy and that it is against the law for Facebook to do this.  However, I personally think that is not illegal and that we, as individuals, should be monitoring our own online presence.  We should be aware of what we post and share and I believe we should be responsible for our actions.

Facebook gives us the option to control our own accounts and what we share.  We can make our accounts private, we can control who sees our information and we can even choose a different name if we really want to be anonymous.  However, the privacy settings do take some time to locate and if you are not the most technologically savvy, they can be a little difficult to set.  This is where Facebook has some opportunities to change.  The privacy settings should be upfront and easily accessible for everyone to set.  I understand why they do it.  Facebook is a business and they are in the market to make money just like every other business.  Their income comes from advertising and the “clicks” you make.  Everything you click on a business to view their items, Facebook generates income from that.  If your privacy settings block that, then they are not producing the necessary revenue to stay in business.

In the end, it is our own responsibility to be socially aware of what we post to the Internet.  Once it is posted then that information is there forever and forever is a very long time.

Quinn, K. (2016, March). Why We Share: A Uses and Gratifications Approach to Privacy Regulation in Social Media Use. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, Vol 60(Issue 1), pp. p61-86. 26p.

Facebook Privacy