Privacy Issues

Privacy, has always been a very important thing for people, but especially in modern times with heightened issues of surveillance and continued power inequality it seems to be more of an issue than ever before. On the Internet, I am very wary of my personal privacy.. but by looking on my Facebook in class, it is still something I am not in control of. Even by Googling my name, people can see race's I have run and the terrible times I have gotten, and find out where I went to high school. Now I understand that no one is really "out to get me" but there is still potential for private information to be used in a negative way against me, or without my knowledge.

I think that I am mostly concerned about people being able to contact me at home, or on my cellphone because those are mainly for personal use and I would not want them 'invaded' by an unwanted outsider.

On Facebook, ever since I have had a profile I have made sure to put as little information on it as possible. I don't put my year of birth, my exact hometown, address, or cell phone number. I do this because a lot of the time people add me that I am not particularly close with, but have become acquainted with once or twice. A lot of the time I don't want these people calling me or texting me.. and so I do not share my phone information or address. I do put up a lot of pictures, but I have recently taken many off.. I find a minimalist approach to social networking is best. People are going to find out things about you either way, but as long as I can try and stay in control of that information, its okay by me.

I do have a horror story, I can't remember if it is Facebook or Myspace- but same difference. A friend of a friend who we shall call Lucy.. in high school, Lucy got an email from someone she had never met saying he had fallen in love with a girl over the Internet, but this girl had recently revealed that she had been copying Lucy's pictures to send to the boy, rather than her own. Along with some information gathered from her profile, the girl had convinced this boy that she looked like Lucy! Lucy then freaked out.. understandably.

THIS is why people should always, always make their profile pages PRIVATE. The story sounds like something made up, but it actually happened just like in the movies!! Crazy!! Moral of the story, other than making your profile private- add other security features like taking your name off Google.. a lot of people don't realize this as we found out in class, and were not comfortable with it. My story tells that a lot of people are unaware of who is looking, using, and circulating their information without their personal permission. And this was just a harmless Internet girlfriend.. who knows, it could have been a serial killer or something