Thursday, October 17, 2013

Facebook Eases Privacy Rules for Teenagers

week 7 article 3

1. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/17/technology/facebook-changes-privacy-policy-for-teenagers.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&ref=todayspaper&adxnnlx=1382038407-wIv7gTNuxhYMV7mEkkef5Q

2. category: social media

3. level: national

4. This article concerns: Facebook now allows teenagers to post status updates, videos and images that can be seen by anyone, not just their friends or people who know their friends. But while Facebook described the change as giving teenagers, ages 13 to 17, more choice, big money is at stake for the company and its advertisers.

5. How it affects individuals/families: Facebook is trying to compete with other social media sites by trying to have younger kids be able to reach a wider audience and be able to express themselves publicly. Parents and other adults are worried about this because its risky, Facebook has you post things under your real identity unlike other social media sites. Online bullying has been getting worse and most of this happens through social media so by having less privacy and having your posts seen by anyone makes it real easy for bullies and sexual harassers to target these teens.

6. My input: I am neutral about this change. I think it is good for people to get their name out there who are trying to be successful and do something big with their lives. These kids should be allowed to post what they want and be able to choose who sees what they say as long as they know the risks. On the other hand, these kids are young and most of them ignore the dangers of what could happen. This new change could possibly led to more online bullying and even sexual exploitation, people are sick out there and use these sites to target younger people for these types of reasons. Facebook is doing this to benefit themselves and keep up with the competition, but they are not taking into consideration on what could happen. This is great for people like musicians because Facebook encourages people to put everything out there which is highly attractive to Facebook advertisers. But, most of the people taking advantage of this new change are most likely not people like musicians, there just young kids sucked into this social media world. I think, unlike Facebook thinks, that these kids are just going to abuse this new change by saying anything that's on their mind not realizing that some of these random people look at these posts are creeps and are going to target them as their next victim of social media abuse. Hopefully, since these kids are going to take advantage of these new privacy changes, that they at least have a parent or someone consulting them about the dangers and risks they are putting themselves in by having anyone seeing whats going on in their lives. Personally, I think that if you are not trying to be a musician or something big, that you just just keep your settings to private for only your family and friends to see. I don't see the point in having everyone in the world seeing what you did today, what you ate for lunch, or where you're going to be at this weekend, that's just setting yourself up for a potential disaster.

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