The internet enables us to communicate, acquire and share information ignoring the physical barriers. Many people developed a habit to put their conversation on the web, allowing more than one person to see the message.
I started facebook when I was in Form 5, since I have to remain in contact with my friends after they go aboard to study. At first, when there was only less than 100 friends in my facebook, I was happy being able to communicate with my friends in the UK and Canada, and I was able to find a few primary schoolmates which I haven’t contact for a long time. However, when I entered University, the number of friends boosts up like having a turbo engine in it, and that’s the time I feel uncomfortable updating status and having conversations with my friends. Knowing that facebook kept the intellectual rights of the things users posted in it, including photos and other stuff, along with the reports on facebook privacy, I decided to stop putting information on Facebook and put only a limited amount of information to maintain contacts with my friends. And that’s the reason why I turn to use another social network- plurk, to interact with 30 of my friends, which are really my friends.
What I would like to say from my experience is that there is a high risk of exposing personal information on the internet, especially on social networks like Facebook and twitter.
I recall reading news about a couple in the UK having a son with heart disease. They kept on updating the information about their kid on Facebook for friends and relatives to know the situation of their son. However, they allow ‘friends of friends’ to see their status and that result in the ransacking of their home twice when they brought their son to a surgery and announced in on Facebook. This is not the only case, there were many other reports on burglary, bullying, rape and even murder.
This picture shows how vulnerable you and your home is when you update your location and status on social networks.
This report carried out in UK shows that 80% of the burglars would check the status on facebook, twitter and other social networks to target which properties to rob. They would also use Google Map to check the neighborhood before they commit the crime.
Therefore, while enjoying the convenience of social networks to interact with friends, we should also be careful of what information we are giving to the others, while some of them are your close friends, some maybe the people you don’t even know who could possibly post a threat on you.
Here is a reference site about the privacy of personal data in Hong Kong:
http://www.privacy.com.hk/
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