Chief Privacy Officer for Facebook, Erin Egan, posted a blog on Friday 23 March, 2012, that highlighted Facebook’s concern at people abusing their authority by requesting user details and passwords. It seems a number of employers have been requesting both current and prospective employees to hand over their Facebook account passwords. Facebook is outraged that employers would even think of doing such a thing as this totally contravenes the privacy policies set out by Facebook.

Egan wrote: “If you are a Facebook user, you should never have to share your password, let anyone access your account, or do anything that might jeopardize the security of your account or violate the privacy of your friends.  We have worked really hard at Facebook to give you the tools to control who sees your information.

As a user, you shouldn’t be forced to share your private information and communications just to get a job.  And as the friend of a user, you shouldn’t have to worry that your private information or communications will be revealed to someone you don’t know and didn’t intend to share with just because that user is looking for a job.”

Egan also made a convincing argument as to why employers are at risk when they ask for employee passwords: “We don’t think employers should be asking prospective employees to provide their passwords because we don’t think it’s the right thing to do.  But it also may cause problems for the employers that they are not anticipating.  For example, if an employer sees on Facebook that someone is a member of a protected group (e.g. over a certain age, etc.) that employer may open themselves up to claims of discrimination if they don’t hire that person.”

Facebook has “made it a violation of Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities to share or solicit a Facebook password.” They also state that if need be, they would take legal action should the need arise, against anyone infringing on their Privacy Policy.

While I appreciate Facebook’s sincere concern at these privacy violations, and Egan has written a convincing blog addressing the issues, I can’t help but feel that this blog was not the best place to address the issue. I am quite sure that those already infringing on the privacy policies of Facebook, probably don’t know what the policies are, or even care what they are. This leads me to believe that they probably will not even read Egan’s blog, but maybe that’s just the pessimist in me and Egan’s blog will in fact change the actions of these employers who, in infringing the Facebook privacy policies, clearly have no respect for the privacy of their employees or potential employees.

With the internet now allowing anyone with an internet connection the ability to be a news reporter, what will happen to traditional news sources like newspapers and news on TV and radio?

There are already reports from many newspapers that circulation is dropping as more and more people opt to go online in order to find information for free that they would normally have to pay for. (more…)

On February 9 2011, an American teacher was suspended without pay for having vented about a few of her students on her blog. As far as she was concerned, the only people who would see it were a few of her friends, but somehow it got picked up by her employees, who needless to say were not very impressed. (more…)

The internet has only really been around for most people for less than 20 years, yet its impact on the world has been immense. What follows are five ways the internet has changed the world.

Communication

Remember the days when you had to pick up a piece of paper and a pen in order to write to someone? And then you would have to go through the process of putting the letter in an envelope, stamping it and taking it to a post office to send. All this, and the card you sent for Christmas would invariably arrive sometime around Easter…

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A couple of years ago, my mom peered over my sister’s shoulder and read the message on her phone. “Lol? Who is lolling you? Is that some kind of rude word?”

With e-mail, instant messaging, facebook, twitter and SMSs or text messages, a new form of writing has emerged. Due to the fact that many of these new systems limit the number of characters you can use, people try many different ways to get a meaningful message across in the smallest possible way. This includes substituting numbers for letters, letters for words and numerous misspellings of words in order to try and use fewer characters.

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What is a blog? When I was asked to contribute to this blog, I decided to try to find out what makes a blog a blog. I found so much information, but I also found myself having to sift through a lot of other stuff just to try and narrow down to what I was looking for. (more…)