"Facebook Thinks You Are a Dumb F*ck"

http://perezhilton.com/2010-05-18-facebook-thinks-you-are-a-dumbfk

Posted Tuesday, May 18th, 2010 on perezhilton.com, "Facebook Thinks You Are a Dumb F*ck" brings attention to the issues of privacy and trust regarding the social networking site. Provided is a transcription of a conversation the creator and his friend had about the users and their information.

While questioning the credibility of the transcripted IM messages exchanged between Facebook creator, Mark Zukerberg, and his friend, this short post on perezhilton.com did get me thinking about the privacy issues that arise from the use of Facebook and other social networking sites. Until about a year and a half ago, I never really thought about identity theft and how it would be so easy for that to happen to anyone. Until that happened to a close friend of mine, I was always posting or filling in all of the information/interest boxes on Facebook and MySpace. I used to always download new applications onto my profile and play games or take stupid quizzes. But before you enter any of those, I recall you had to "accept" the company's and Facebook's terms to share your information or send you random spam. Now that my friend has experienced this unfortunate situation, I am a little more paranoid or iffy about what I am sending out into and receiving from cyberspace. I rarely download any of the applications, I cannot recall the last time I was on MySpace, and am slowing filtering out personal information from my Facebook profile. I even keep all of my privacy settings on "friends only" since I really only have Facebook to keep in touch with those far away or easily share information with my friends.

Regarding the information that is at Mark Zuckerber's hands, I have no idea what legal rights or implications would be if everyone's private information were to go public or have public access. I am just glad that I have semi-unplugged myself and am not taking Facebook so seriously as I used to.

Margarita Vincent