Facebook Can Be a Risky Place - What Everyday Users Should Know but Don't

Whenever someone tells me they're planning to go to Mexico City, I enthusiastically point out places they should visit, sights they should see and restaurants they must try. Inevitably they ask if the city is dangerous and my answer is that it's as dangerous as any city in the world of comparable size and complexity, and I caution that just as in any other city, there are areas they should avoid or shouldn’t go to at all.

I feel the same way about Facebook and social media in general.

It's All About the Data

Anyone who ventures into the city of Facebook is tacitly acknowledging they're willing to travel with the risks the current state of social media poses. First thing anyone should know is Facebook captures inordinate amounts of data about everyone who uses and visits their properties. Even technologically savvy users have little idea to which extent.

Additionally, and as the recent Cambridge Analytica story makes evident, there is massive use and abuse of Facebook user data through both legitimate and questionable means. 

Per Facebook’s Terms of Service and Data Policy, they collect:

• Things you do and information you provide
• Things others do and information they provide
• Your networks and connections
• Information about payments
• Device information
• Information from websites and apps that use our Services
• Information from third-party partners
• Facebook companies

If you have time and patience to go through them, you can link here to the Terms of Service.

It's All About the Data....and Making Money From It

Visitors to the city of Facebook should know it's capturing all this data to make money, lots of it, and they're not sharing the spoils.  Users, mostly unknowingly, have given Facebook their permission to use and sell their data for advertising purposes. Again, per their Terms of Service: 

• You give us permission to use your name, profile picture, content, and information in connection with commercial, sponsored, or related content (such as a brand you like) served or enhanced by us. This means, for example, that you permit a business or other entity to pay us to display your name and/or profile picture with your content or information, without any compensation to you.

Smart Travelers Know What They're Getting Into

Smart travelers, whether they go to Mexico City or anywhere else, study up, become aware of the risks and plan to optimize their experience.

Social Media users should do the same: study up, recognize risks, optimize their experience.

Social media is the Wild West of current technology, but whereas 19th century colonists had little information about the land they were migrating to, Facebook users have enough data to make informed decisions. I, as an example, hesitate to share information about my family but freely opine and share news articles, photographs, jokes and memes. I don't want data about my family to be abused but have fewer concerns about more general or publicly available information.

Regardless of anyone's use of Facebook, their Terms of Service make the following 3 points in different parts of their documentation:

• People should own their information. They should have the freedom to share it with anyone they want and take it with them anywhere they want, including removing it from the Facebook Service. People should have the freedom to decide with whom they will share their information, and to set privacy controls to protect those choices. Those controls, however, are not capable of limiting how those who have received information may use it, particularly outside the Facebook Service.

In lofty terms, Facebook tells you how'd they'd like their service to be used but as experience has shown, they're not doing enough to make their vision a reality. They rightly put some of the onus on their users but cannot guarantee, as the last sentence points out, they can completely protect the data we have entrusted to them. This is problematic, but they do state it even if in a very roundabout way.

• Stuff other people share: If other people share info about you, even if it’s something you shared with them but did not make public, they can choose to make it public. Also when you comment on other people’s public posts, your comment is public as well.

One of the main storylines in the Cambridge Analytica scandal is they tapped into users' friends' data. Whilst this might seem unethical, if a Facebook user makes their data publicly visible including their list of friends, then according to Facebook's terms of use, this behavior is allowed. What is worrisome in the statement above is that something that was shared privately could be made public by how a recipient decides to treat what is being shared with him or her.

• For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (IP content), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it.

In my opinion, Facebook misleads their users when they say "people should own their information". At best, they allow for joint custody, but Facebook can still do whatever it wants with it. This is one of the reasons I don't like to share details about my family. I don't want Facebook or any other company to use my family's information for their business purposes or to be unethically used by third parties.

Happy Travelling

I took the time the read through Facebook's Terms of Service to have a fair and informed opinion of the Cambridge Analytica scandal and to provide my readers basic understanding of what we sign up to whenever we visit the city of Facebook.

As users, we do not pay enough attention nor understand the consequences of our sharing habits. In light of everything we've learned about Facebook data practices, we should reevaluate our habits and make our travels through the city of Facebook safe and enjoyable.

And by the way, if you're thinking about visiting Mexico City, do it.

?Although I've lived a life in technology sales and it's what I do to pay the bills, I'm passionate about helping people achieve success in their terms. Writing is a way to accomplish this.