Facebook is safe – isn’t it?

17 Replies Christopher Roberts

Hello, my name is Christopher Roberts. I am a trustworthy individual. I kindly request you to go to my websites contact page and send me a message which includes: your full name; your date of birth; a list of your best friends; your holiday snaps from last summer; your mobile number; what TV programs you like; where you work; and what you were doing on Tuesday morning.

Silly request, as nobody will do it (at least I hope they won’t) as I am asking for extremely sensitive, private information.

Let me put a different hat on.

Paul Bulcke here, chief exec of Nestlé. Same request as above, please send me your DOB, New Years party snaps, home address, a list of your favourite films etc.

Again, you probably wouldn’t do this, but stick with me, I am going somewhere…

Hi there, my name is Mark Zuckerberg and I am the founder of Facebook. What about now, what are you going to tell this massive multinational company? Everything?

Mark Zuckerberg founder of FacebookYes you can set your profile to private, but what does the company Facebook know about you? Pretty much everything – this obviously depends on what you tell it. Mobile phone numbers, holiday snaps, what you ate for dinner yesterday etc. are common things for people to tell Facebook and similar social networking sites, would you not agree?

This sort of data is used in targeting adverts on such sites, so that you are more likely to pay attention to them – is that not an exploitation of your rights?

Have you ever really though about what information you put into Facebook? Yes there are probably laws in most countries to stop Facebook disclosing any of your information, but what if it gets hacked? It’s happened before. Last Wednesdays breakfast may not be that useful, but your name, address and phone number could be very useful to help track you down or set up a bank account in your name.

Who says Facebook has to be hacked, if a rouge employee decides to steel half a million peoples emails, what can you do?

I urge you to seriously contemplate what you tell the internet, as you never know it may one day come back to haunt you.

So what do you think, am I extremely sceptical of social media, or do you believe that we give the internet far too much personal data?

Categories: Social Media
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Written by Christopher Roberts
Founder and editor of Technology Bloggers, Christopher is passionate about sustainable technology and environmental initiatives. He wants to popularise critical thinking, promote responsible innovation, and excite you about the world around us.

17 thoughts on “Facebook is safe – isn’t it?”

  1. Maria Pavel

    Hi Christopher,

    Facebook is following on the steps of Google day by day, but they do seem intent on providing the best security they can. At least from outside sources. As you said, there’s always a possibility that some employee will break havoc in there, but we face with that danger everywhere. If a bank employee decides to empty some accounts and skip town, what can we do? We can’t live without bank, we need to trust them.
    Facebook is not a necessity, but if you have a company and you want to promote it, it kind of becomes one. Else you’ll be left behind and competition will walk on you.
    Let’s just call it a necessary evil. Personally, i have several phone numbers and i don’t give my private one online. I’m just being safe, even if the chances of something happening are low.

    Glad i found you, Maria.

    Reply
    • Christopher (admin team)

      “If a bank employee decides to empty some accounts and skip town, what can we do?” – Don’t mean to be picky, but the bank has to give you your money back if you demand it, however once personal data is leaked, there is nothing you can do.

      I see what you mean, we need to trust them. But do we trust them too much?

      A wise choice keeping some numbers private, it’s like email addresses, always keep some for family and friends only, so that the spam can’t reach you there!

      Glad i found you – Really? Why? Not being funny, just curious 😉

      Thanks for finding us and dropping a comment in!
      Christopher – Admin Team

      Reply
      • Maria Pavel

        lol, what i meant is that i’m glad i ran into your blog, seems to have some useful info. And that’s at high demand these days.

        You’re right about the bank, it wasn’t a perfect example, but i think you go the right idea.

        Whatever people say, the internet is not a safe place, facebook or anything else for that matter. There will always be people capable of exploiting its weaknesses.

        Reply
        • Christopher (admin team)

          You speak words of experience and wisdom Maria!

          Sorry if this sounds a bit, well big headed, but I ask everyone when they make a remark like this
          “i’m glad i ran into your blog, seems to have some useful info” – Why? What info do you find useful and why? What can I write more of, and what can I recruit others to write more of?

          BTW, if you do like our blog (our as it is a community blog) if you haven’t already, why not subscribe via email? It’s easy, simple and free + you never miss an article!

          Thanks 🙂
          Christopher – Admin Team

          Reply
  3. Rojish

    We cannot trust anything on the internet too much. There are many incidents that popular websites got hacked and the email addresses and passwords of its members were stolen. Let us hope such incidents will not happen to facebook 🙂

    Reply
    • Christopher (admin team)

      I back that Rojish! Hackers, hands off Facebook 😉

      Thanks for stopping by and leaving us a comment Rojish, much appreciated by the whole community which you are now part of, hope to see you around again soon 🙂
      Christopher – Admin Team

      P.S Just read your latest post, very interesting, it’s amazing how many of them I have bumped into whilst out and about in the blogosphere!

      Reply
  4. SEO Gurgaon

    Facebook is safe, students should be able to use it at school because some students communicate to friends or loved ones via Facabook. If Facebook is allowed at school, students won’t try to bring their phones to school because they are able to still talk to their friends. Freshman Giovanny Blanco says, “We should be able to use Facebook during school in case of an emergency.”

    Reply
    • Christopher (admin team)

      A good point, Facebook can be use to help individuals communicate, but would it really stop children using mobiles in lesson? Who knows 😉

      Reply
  5. Jimmy @ wordpress themes

    If you use it wisely then it´s safe, but ppl don’t use their common sense when using Facebook and other services online.

    We have here in Denmark a few times seen that information on Facebook, has been abused with great consequences for the owner of the information.

    Reply
    • Christopher (admin team)

      Do you think it would be beneficial for some ‘fake’ scenarios to be devised on order to make people think about what stuff they give away online?

      Thanks for stopping by and dropping us a comment 🙂
      Christopher – Admin Team

      Reply
      • Jimmy @ wordpress themes

        Worst-case scenario would certainly make people think twice about what they write and put on facebook.!

        We have seen several cases where images, information etc. have been taken from a facebook profile, and then used elsewhere. For example, there has been a case about a young girl who has had one open up, her images and more. was abused to a page offering free sex with her​​.
        Those how wanted this “free” sex, got her real address and phone number.
        Which resulted in that she had to change number and address, to get away from those who thought they could get free sex with her.

        Reply
  6. Pingback: Is your smart phone too clever? | Technology Bloggers

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