FaceBook : Friendly or Risky?

FaceBook tops the list of all social networking sites known in the internet. It’s number one in the list of 2010 Social Networking Websites Review Comparisons of the TopTen Reviews website with 93.3 million Quantcast Monthly Visitors according to the February 2010 Top 20 Most Popular Social Networking Websites published by eBizMBA.

Social networking sites are packed with different strategies to capture the century’s limelight on cyber civilization, but Facebook has captured the most attention and usage from social networkers worldwide. One quick search could give you links to different portals known to mankind — may be it a group, a fan page, different schools, organizations, fish tanks, juggling pets, cafes, farms, and ravaging mob jobs. Anything you could be looking for is just a click away.

But in its glorious fame, could FaceBook pose risk to its users?

One of the biggest hit to ever happen on FaceBook history was the introduction of “applications” on its pages — Free hugs are flying on different pages; Free beers, quizzes, quotes, lots of free page make-ups, and many more. For millions of FaceBook users, this appears to be fun. But as far as the definition of sites like FaceBook is concerned, social networking seems to be getting lost in its own maze.

What most users don’t know about FaceBook is that the “applications” are not really part of it. They are created by many companies who want to share and benefit from its popularity. ‘Zynga’ by the way, is very popular in that sense. So the catch is, once you open an application like a poker game, a dialogue box will pop-up and asks if you will let them access your personal information, which includes, pulling of photos, friends’ information, and other content. These third party companies are not, by any means, covered by the terms and conditions of FaceBook, thus, posing danger to privacy, and could lead to possible identity theft or a takeover of one’s account. However, many use FaceBook because of these very applications.

Aside from this, posting status and sharing them to people is also very crucial when it comes to information pulling — FaceBook serves as an online biography, diary, and planner, that scrupulous people could use it in ways that could compromise one’s identity and life. These, aside from the fact that all data placed on FaceBook becomes their permanent property unless you delete your account. Despite this option to delete though, your information is still retained as per this section from its Terms and Conditions: “Prohibited Conduct, User Content, Your Privacy Practices, Gift Credits, Ownership; Proprietary Rights, Licenses, Submissions, User Disputes; Complaints, Indemnity, General Disclaimers, Limitation on Liability, Termination and Changes to the FaceBook Service, Arbitration, Governing Law; Venue and Jurisdiction and Other.” And come to think of it, social networking is not suppose to be a danger, it’s supposed to be fun and foster good relations, especially among friends and families who are far apart and use it as a means of keeping in touch and letting them know they’re cared for. However, this popular social network is itself not a hazard, especially to those who secure accounts on it for simple entertainment. The problem are those people with bad intentions who have identified FaceBook as perfect ground for their uncanny works and use it for different scams. Because every time a thing becomes popular, it becomes an avenue for malicious intentions.

So to be safe than sorry, add only people you know, and always be cautious with information you accept and share. After all, everyone in this planet is unique and would surely not want that uniqueness shared or taken by anyone.