That is kind of my point. It is the difference of saying something to 10 friends at a bar or printing something that 100 or more people can see on FB. Sure, it might be a headline, but the employee can either say "I never said that," or "that was taken out of context," or "No, I said..." and then give another quote, or even "my buddy said that sarcastically, you misheard it." Context and the exact quote can both be questioned, and the headline itself will have very little weight, and can be easily refuted. On the other hand, if someone takes a screen shot from FB, posts a headline, and then has the screenshot inside the article as PROOF of what was said, the context in which it was said, and exactly who said it, that is way more damning than "I heard so-and-so complaining at the bar last night."
At which point the cat is out of the bag, so any 'refutation' is largely a moot point. Or will end up taking the form "Apple Denies That iPhone Gives You Brain AIDS," which will only lead to more attention being drawn to the possibility of the iPhone giving you Brain AIDS. You're really giving the media too much credit when it comes to how "hearsay" is reported. I mean shit, we went to war with Spain on hearsay. People desperately want social networking to be a Brand New Thing, Nothing Like the Old Things. It's not. It's the same shit in different wrapping. You act like you're in public, because you are. We as a society have developed somewhat accepted protocols for how one is expected to act in public. Use them.
Social media and networking is different, though. It offers something that people can hold up as tangible, concrete proof of what was said, when it was said, who said it, and the context in which it was said; this is something that didn't exist before. Unless someone was caught on video camera with a time stamp, that is. Of course all of this is subject to journalistic integrity, but so is everything. Nothing stops a journalist or blogger from saying "iPhones give you Brain AIDS, I heard Jimmy Jackoff the Apple employee say it last night at the bar," even if Jimmy Jackoff never even came close to saying such a thing. What stops a blogger from seeing an Apple employee at a bar and just completely making up some bullshit and claiming the Apple employee said it? Answer: absolutely nothing is stopping him, except the threat of a lawsuit, which said blogger faces if he prints anything he overhears anyway, as the employee can easily refute anything a blogger claims to have overheard, as there is no evidence short of "he-said/he-said." That is the key here, though: if it is overheard and there is no proof other than "I heard it," it immediately turns into your word against theirs, with no real proof on either side. The other thing that makes it different is if a blogger runs a story that an Apple employee posted "Friends, don't use your iPhones, they give you Brain AIDS!" on his FB, people will demand proof, and the blogger better fucking offer up a screen shot, or he is fucked, sued for libel, and who knows what else. That is the key, here. Social networking offers something that overhearing some bullshit in a bar or overhearing someone talking on the street doesn't offer: tangible, real proof of what was said. Anything else is your word against theirs. That is why monitoring FB, for a company, is important. A company can refute hearsay to stockholders, they can't refute the screen shots of employees saying they are routinely beaten with extension cords for making personal calls at work.
This discussion about your company's attempts to deal with Facebook are great and all, but to get back on topic: This website has been posting pictures of people who have been identified as having participated in the riots, in an attempt to publicly shame them. I think that is awesome. (I take issue with the post in which they posted the guy who wrote support of the riots on Facebook but didn't participate with them. He didn't do anything illegal, so instead of using the site as a deterrent against illegal activities, they are turning it into an ethical issue, which is a grey area.) If riots were going on in my city, I would probably do anything in my power to turn in those that were involved, regardless of my relations with them. Anyone who is enough of a scumbag to destroy infrastructure and resources is no friend of mine, and I would immediately turn my back on anyone I knew who did something like that. The craziest part is the people who got beat up for defending their own property or themselves. Check out this video of two women attempting to defend their cars. (I'll say with 100% certainty that they weren't beat up because they were women.) This wasn't an instance of people flipping over a car in a moment of opportunity and impulse—they had to literally stalk the situation and flip the car when the women were distracted. Fucking pathetic.
But that is just it. You are NOT in control of the privacy settings, nor do you "own" the data or information you've provided to Facebook, etc. They can change the way the privacy works without notice. Something that was deemed private before can be made public, with you now having to go and opt-in to the original privacy settings. They share data with companies ALL THE TIME. They SELL that data. Who's to say your company hasn't purchased some data from FB about you already? You don't know if they have or haven't. People share very intimate and private things online that can have huge consequences for them in the real world, and yet they think nothing of it, or take no responsibility for their actions when shit does hit the fan. This is what makes me go "WTF"? It might be that I live and breathe in the IT world, and know how these things work from a technical as well as a business perspective, but in this day and age, EVERYONE should be aware that these multi-billion dollar companies do not have your best interests at heart. Go look at the start of facebook. They got a TON of personal and private information from their initial user base... enough that they could set up bank accounts, etc. How? THEY ASKED.
Ignore the peanut gallery... it's well on topic, as it delves into the apparent disconnect people have between social media and the physical world. The fact that companies somehow feel that they have a right to go digging through locked away profiles, and don't see a problem with that, is plenty on topic. Would they ask for keys to someones journal or diary?
Social media can be a dangerous thing. For instance, Harry there has made a few snippity comments to me and the mods today. He red dotted me for a post I made about tail gating, and then reported a thread for being too "reddit-like", demanding that it be gotten rid of. Yeah, he demanded. That pissed me off a bit. Not the red dotting, because each to their own, but the "demanding" that the post be gotten rid of irked me. So, within 2 minutes of Googling, I've been able to find out more about him than he probably realizes. First, his twitter: REDACTED I wasn't sure if that was him or not, but then I saw that he follows Corman, so that's a pretty good guess. Then there's the YouTube channel he has of all his powerlifting: REDACTED Now, hypothetically speaking... what are the odds that he's using a different password for his twitter as he is here? Or his YouTube account? People, by their nature, are lazy, and very few have different passwords for different things, or change them regularly. If I really wanted to, I could probably find out what his password here is, and then try that on his Twitter, and maybe his Youtube accounts, to see if they'd work. Then I could go nuts. And maybe look for his Facebook account, if he had one. (I stopped after twitter and youtube). I bet they would. Hell, I betcha he's even narcissistic enough that he uses his first name in his password... but I'm only guessing. But, I've been around this game a LONG time, and am a pretty good judge of human behaviour, so I'd bet that was indeed the case. So right there, all that shit is out there, and I bet he thought it was hidden. Same goes for Facebook and other social sites. And THAT is just from a simple Google search. But let's just say that he's probably lucky that I'm a nice guy, for the most part. Do NOT fool yourself... this shit is out there, and it's easy to get at. Just because you click "do not share" on the little checkbox on the web page doesn't mean it's private. Actually, it means fuck all... it's just lulling you into a false sense of security. There are people who have way more sophisticated searching and profiling tools than Google who are being hired to provide all sorts of information to prospective employers. And yet people don't seem to get this, and post all sorts of shit about themselves online, thinking that they're hidden or have any kind of privacy. It's almost amusing.
The issue is a little thornier than that. Screen shots prove nothing. I can delete my status and you won't be able to view it live again. Screen shots can be faked. I'd actually be interested to know what the employer laws are surrounding this. Many of us live in "at-will" employment states, so they don't have to prove anything. Actually, a woman at my office was fired for just this: her boyfriend worked at my office, they laid him off, and shortly thereafter she went on a tirade on Facebook about what a shitty company she works for. She was fired for it. They didn't have to prove she did it and she really has no recourse. To obtain actual proof, though, they'd have to subpoena Facebook to obtain some kind of snapshot of that person's account at the time. I'm no lawyer, but I'm guessing the company would actually have to be pursuing a libel case or some other illegal practice in order to have any legal grounds for obtaining that information. In any event, I'm a strong proponent of personal responsibility. I never put anything on Facebook that I wouldn't allow my mother or my boss to see, I regularly review my privacy settings because, though I don't befriend my boss or superiors at work on Facebook, I still don't want personal information leaking out. People need to learn that digital media of any kind never goes away because it's too easy to duplicate and archive - the only thing you can count on is taking it upon yourself to ensure that nothing gets published that you wouldn't mind hanging around forever. I wonder, in 20 years, when the digital generation starts to have jobs in places of power or political careers, what will be dredged up out of the digital archives. It's already happening on a short-term basis with idiots making bad decisions online, but what about the people who grew up and went through their formative years - the years where we all make mistakes and stupid choices - with all of those bad decisions recorded online? How many people are scraping public data and keeping it hidden away?
Inside of your home, you have a right to privacy. As Nett said, people shouldn't be fooled into thinking it extends to the Internet. If people are really so concerned about their privacy, why create a profile on Facebook to begin with? So you care about your privacy, but selectively? Also, to wrap up my point(s), if you don't think it's ethical for a company to attempt to track what you do, is it more ethical to publicly rail against the same company thats providing you with a paycheck every 2 weeks? In each company, no one gives a shit about you or you're privacy. You're not a major stockholder and probably not a senior officer. You're a disposable cog in the wheel. The point is maximum profit, and no company is going to let that be contradicted by having bad PR coming from the inside.
There is a reason that I compared it to a bar or other 'public setting', and not your home. You don't have true 'privacy,' and the degree of privacy is contingent on how much you choose to reveal. Can't knock the hustle. And w.r.t your previous post, one can debate the degree that it's mere hand-waving and bullshit (probably is), but there's a certain value to being the sort of company that says "Don't be evil." At the end of the day, a company that is actively trying to spy on me is one I might have reservations about working for. It's not about having anything to hide (I don't), but rather about the way the employer is approaching our relationship. Many talented people will feel similarly, and human capital matters. Money salves a lot of wounds, but (good) employees respect employers that respect them.
All of this is true, but I reject the notion that content providers are absovled of all responsibility for ensuring that private information remains private. I don't use Facebook, but if there's a setting that says, "Turn this on and no one can view pictures you post" then yes, I believe Facebook is obligated to ensure that it delivers on its claim. The excuse that "it's the internet lol, no information is safe" is a bunch of bullshit. I damn well expect that my bank keeps my bank account information private and secure, and since Facebook apparently is moving into the realm of potentially creating serious consequences for people then I bears some responsiblity to its users to keep allegedly private information private.
Reject away.... doesn't mean squat. Hell, look at the major fuck-ups that FB has already had that has dumped tons of private data out into the wild. Any repercussions to them? Nope. The technology and the business are on the bleeding edge, and to think that they will either "do the right thing", or that legislature will enforce them to do the right thing is a laughable notion. Just take a look at Sarbanes Oxley, and tell me how well that's gone. And that is orders of magnitude simpler than dealing with these social sites. Go read the EULA for these sites. That alone is worth a laugh. I cannot emphasize strongly enough just how naive the users of social media sites are. For instance, when you delete something in FB, you don't really think that they, you know, delete it, do you? Think about that.
Netdata, I think what you're saying is a bit absurd really. You said Facebook sell your data to companies. Which implies that if my boss wanted to, he could email FB and pay them $500 or whatever and get to read all his employee's inbox messages and see their photo's etc. He can't do that. The only access to data FB gives away is that it allows targeted advertising, but it does not tell you anything about the people you are advertising too (names etc.). And your thing about getting the password from this forum to get into his FB account is pretty absurd too. I imagine this board encrypts it's passwords so administrators or hackers have no access to them. As far as I'm aware PhpBB does this for all their forums. And even then, you often need more than a password to get into someones FB account. It will detect you're logging in from a different IP and ask you to confirm who people in photo's are etc. It's pretty secure. And then you get in, so what. Really, all this concern about FB etc. is almoste exclusively from older gentlemen like yourself, or 4channers who think they're too e-cool for FB. FB is a fantastic tool and it's really improved my quality of life. The chat feature alone helps so much organizing events and nights out. There is a level of trust between FB and users. Just as there is with Google. If either of them started giving away information on people's habits or data, people would just move to a different more trustworthy platform.
You really have no idea what I do for a living, do you? HIS PASSWORD REDACTED You'll appreciate the fact that I slightly modified your password for public consumption. Now... how many other sites do you participate in that use the exact same password? You have no idea what goes on with the large data mining sites, or how the data is used. Having been involved first-hand working with FB to develop a custom FB application for a global gaming company, I can tell you that there is a SHIT TON of information that is available to corporations with money. You really do not have any idea what you are talking about, as much as you think you might. But you are right about one thing, you DO trust those big companies. I don't.
Could I ask you to remove that completely. Like really. Edit: Thanks, guess I learned a lesson today.
Listen... I do Security Engineering for a living. I don't just write code in my mom's basement in PHP and run scripts for Lulz... I have spent years training and educating myself on the technologies and human psychology that surround online security. Banks and governments and global gaming companies hire me for stupid money to help them design and protect their systems. Please do not presume to come on here and tell me what can and cannot be done when it comes to that unless you have some cred in the field. Discuss the social media stuff all you like, and call me a cynic, or a grumpy old man, but I've been in the trenches and have my own, relatively educated opinions on this stuff. Just for shits and giggles, how many other web sites do you use that password at? Banking sites? Face book? Twitter? Flickr?
Like I said... people are generally lazy when it comes to usernames/passwords. And if you learned something out of this, then I truly am glad.