Social media plagued by privacy problems, say researchers

Social media is plagued by privacy problems, according to researchers at Lancaster University who reviewed the privacy management of 16 popular social networking sites, including Facebook and Twitter. The interesting point in their work is that there is a disconnect between the published privacy policies and the options provided to users to control their privacy. I noted in my book that privacy controls on many sites are not obvious to the user. It now seems that what controls that do exist are not traceable back to the published privacy policies. I hope the research leads to a more transparent way for privacy permissions to be governed.

13 Million Facebook Users Haven't Touched Their Privacy Settings

Apparently 13 Million Facebook Users Haven't Touched Their Privacy Settings. And as I mention in my book, it's not in the interests of social media companies like Facebook, to have the defaults as private as you might like. So let's get that number down. Go and check your privacy settings now. If you are not sure how, go into the Facebook help centre, and click on 'Privacy'.