Police warn Australians to pull photos from Facebook after teen allegedly killed by 'friend'
ONLINE protesters have started a "Quit Facebook" campaign which encourages users to close Facebook accounts by May 31.
<!-- google_ad_section_end(name=story_introduction) --> <!-- // .story-intro --> <!-- google_ad_section_start(name=story_body, weight=high) --> The campaign focuses on the fact users have to change 50 different settings to stop the site from sharing private information with third parties.
Although it has gathered just 3700 fans, QuitFacebookDay is expected to become one of many worldwide rallying points against the social network as media scrutiny grows over its perceived willingness to share users' information outside the site itself.
Police in Australia have even taken the unprecedented step of telling users to not show themselves in profile pictures after the vicious murder of a NSW teenager.
Sydney teen Nona Belomesoff was allegedly murdered by a stranger she met on Facebook.
Det Supt Peter Crawford of Taskforce Argos, the unit which hunts online predators, said photos should be removed from public view.
"I don't think kids need to have a profile photograph on the internet," he told the Courier-Mail.
Anger is mounting over the new features that allow certain websites to view and store the Facebook profile of visitors.
Facebook members have to proactively opt out of the new "Instant Personalisation" feature which the websites say will "personalise their web-surfing experience".
Australian Privacy Foundation vice-chairman David Vaile is concerned because Facebook members have not consented to the new privacy settings.
"The commercial partners will not only have the private information of Facebook users but can also see who they know and who they talk to," Mr Vaile said.
"This is not a private joke. This is the publication of your information to five billion people possibly forever."
Mr Vaile said the APF would lobby the Government to address Facebook privacy concerns.
More than fifteen consumer watchdog groups have already filed formal complaints to the US Federal Trade Commission.
Facebook has defended the new capabilities and says they are only used on review websites Yelp, Pandora and Microsoft's new document sharing website docs.com.
Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;
If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,
Till she cry "Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,
I must have you!"
Thomas Parke D’Invilliers
I think they are only ever soft deleted so you can reactivate at any time. Well that was the case a while ago
When we lose twenty pounds... we may be losing the twenty best pounds we have! We may be losing the pounds that contain our genius, our humanity, our love and honesty. ~Woody Allen
Is a chocolate muffin loving glitter ball
I know that you can delete and reactivate. I've known a couple of people who have gone and come back. However if its deactivated I doubt that anyone could access your information.. But who is to know?
Personally I won't be deleting my facebook profile. I'm a bit confused about how showing a profile picture can endanger someone. Surely your safety depends upon who you talk to? And if you're willing to meet strangers in real life. I think that in order to protect people, there should be more of an emphasis on only adding and accepting friend requests from people that you know.
This whole private thing would concern me if I had anything of importance on my facebook page, other than a goofy photo of me holding my brother's polling card.
...I'm a bit confused about how showing a profile picture can endanger someone. Surely your safety depends upon who you talk to? And if you're willing to meet strangers in real life. I think that in order to protect people, there should be more of an emphasis on only adding and accepting friend requests from people that you know...
Yeah, what Hannah says there.
People aren't going to follow the advice that this police force are giving. I think it's a cop out (haha). People are going to continue using internet sites for much the same reasons that they use drugs - the perceived advantages seem to outweigh the perceived risks. The answer might to be campaigns aimed at reducing the risks (we have safer sex campaigns and marm minimisation drugs campaigns), rather than just saying "don't do it", when people who use Facebook responsibly get a lot of pleasure from it.
Yes of course, governments and their agencies are right to be spotlighting the ways in which Facebook gives permission to third parties to access your information without making it clearer that they are doing this.
Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;
If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,
Till she cry "Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,
I must have you!"
Thomas Parke D’Invilliers
No, I'm not going to delete my account, because I'm addicted to it! And at the moment it's where the most of my social interaction, apart from RYL comes from.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mystery of life
Sydney teen Nona Belomesoff was allegedly murdered by a stranger she met on Facebook.
There are plenty of sites for people to meet strangers & if people are going to take that risk then it's inevitable there are going to be things like this that happen, it's not just a Facebook thing
People just need to be more careful about how much they share & who they are in contact with. So many people say waaaay too much. My (ex) CPN very nearly got fired last year by moaning about work - which would have been easily avoided had she just took a moment to think about what she was saying & the consequences
I think they should be warning people about the dangers of meeting strangers and ways to ensure you're safe if you do intend to meet one. *nods* I highly doubt many people will be deleting their accounts. And, sadly, this isn't the first time that someone has died after meeting someone on the internet.
"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."
You can never delete your profile because it still exists on previous hard backups of the site which exist from now back up to when the site was first started. Everything you ever uploaded onto the site is still there, the deletion thing doesn't delete the backups. Thus should facebook choose to, they can always retrieve the data you 'deleted'.
My friend is a software engineer and worked for Bebo for a while and whilst he was there they told him there was no such thing as deleting profiles. It'd simply be too much work to go back through all the past backups and remove traces of people who've decided to stop using the site. So essentially everything was just retained and stored.
Some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money.
They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned or negotiated with.
Some men just want to watch the world burn.
I read about people getting hurt, killed by strangers they met in bars, dorms etc all the time. I can't connect the dots between having a profile pic up and getting murdered. There is a whole lot of terrain to travel between those 2 points. In my time at RYL I think the damage I most consistently read about comes from girls getting drunk and passing out with "friends" they know "in real life" who then take advantage of the situation. I'll admit the web could be dangerous if people aren't smart in a basic way.
There is still quite a taboo about meeting people 'off the internet'. In reality, it's (usually) fine as long as you take some easy steps such as meeting in a public place, etc.
I don't have FB, but I cannot see how deleting profile pictures will make you more likely to be killed or hurt in any way. If you are typically attractive you may be more 'targeted', but then the same could be said for those who are not conventionally attractive. Either way it comes down to the person involved and whether or not they add that person.
I'm sorry, but you have a responsibility about who you talk to. And parents have a responsibility to monitor who their kids talk to online.
A facebook page does not mean you're gonna get kidnapped and killed. If someone approached me and asked me to meet them/spent a while 'grooming' me before asking to meet, I would either say no, or meet only in a public place with a friend/chaperone.
We need to stop blaming the Internet for our personal failings in upholding sense and responsibility.
Last edited by Bellatrix : 19-05-2010 at 09:04 PM.
Reason: typo
The thing is, i don't want to be "bullied" into deleting everything about myself on the net just because some people are sick and twisted in the head. I don't want to live my life in fear of what might happen. I've regained contact with a lot of old friends since i made my facebook account about a year ago.
Psychopaths can find us everywhere. They might even just pass us by on the street for all we know. I think a site like facebook is good for keeping us up to date about people we care about compared to the risk of meeting a potential killer online.
I'm sorry, but you have a responsibility about who you talk to. And parents have a responsibility to monitor who their kids talk to online.
A facebook page does not mean you're gonna get kidnapped and killed. If someone approached me and asked me to meet them/spent a while 'grooming' me before asking to meet, I would either say no, or meet only in a public place with a friend/chaperone.
We need to stop blaming the Internet for our personal failings in upholding sense and responsibility.
QFT
Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;
If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,
Till she cry "Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,
I must have you!"
Thomas Parke D’Invilliers
there is a way to delete your account to where it does not exist (i didn't read the group entirely but i imagine if facebook does the deletion they do keep it), but it's basically a glitch in facebook. at least it was a year ago when i found a website telling me how to get around it. what you do if i remember right is delete all your emails on facebook except your login one, then deactivate your account. then if i remember right you go and create a bogus account with no real details, and put in a different email as your login. then you go and put in the login email to your deactivated account as an additional email in your new account. then you make that your main email for the new account, and it ends up deleting the old one cause i guess it assumes you have a new account or it's just a glitch that facebook either is unaware of or doesn't care about. if you google it, there's websites explaining how to do it (i may have said something wrong as it was a year ago).
as for the privacy settings, i do think they need to make the instant personalization thing an automatic opt out with an option to opt in, and they need to make all settings friends only by default. however, if you take the time to utilize all their privacy settings, it is amazing how much control you have over your information. i do have mine (made a new one, only deleted mine due to drama) set so you can find me on facebook, but all you can see is my name, my picture, and my network. i wish you could hide the networks but i don't think it's that big of an issue as i'm pretty sure no one could find me otherwise with that info, and if i want people i know to be able to find me, my name and picture is going to have to be public. but i have it set so you can't google me, only look for me through facebook and you have to have my name. Even my location is not up there anymore. they've also made it so you can hide you friends list from everyone, even your friends, which i like. also i make it so people i randomly meet online (like here) that i add cannot see possibly identifiable things on my profile such as location, etc. I also keep certain things hidden from people I know might cause drama over it, etc. I agree it is complicated, but I think the problem would go away if they just made the default friends only for every setting and then it's your responsibility to learn how to change it.
So I do think facebook needs to really stop sharing things without gaining specific permission from people. But I think facebook is taking more heat than other parts of the internet that are equally as potentially dangerous. I do imagine that the teen killed shared more than their picture on facebook to be identified. Education about the internet needs to improve drastically. It's amazing how much you can find with small amounts of info though. Like even on here, I've started trying to see how much information you can find on myself and others just to help myself understand how hard/easy it would be to stalk someone. For example, if you use the same username here as elsewhere, and it's a unique username, all someone has to do is google that username to find whatever else you have that username posted on. Say you use the same username here as livejournal. Someone can find your livejournal from just seeing your name here. Fine if you're aware of it, but if you're not, you may have posted your facebook profile on your livejournal, or if you have the same username here as myspace, someone can find your myspace easily. Another thing is how much information you put in your user profile on sites. If you put a name, location, and other such things that may seem harmless at first, but adding them together it makes it statistically more likely to identify you. Also if you have the same username on a big website like myspace or livejournal and then someone googles it, they may find very specific websites that very much tell of your interests and personal life.
And I've found people's myspace just from info on here that would make it ridiculously easy to find them were someone really bent on it. And that's without any hacking or anything, just totally legal googling. I mean say if you've put up the name of your highschool or college on a public myspace, your full name is available on your facebook, then your age is somewhere too, it's going to get pretty easy to find you if someone really wanted to, especially if say your school is small. Could even be something like a church. Now a stalker knows you go to church all the time cause you post a lot about it and they know you'll be there every Sunday, and they've got your name and probably picture, so all they've got to do is wander around pretending to be someone who knows you and ask a few people and chances are they will figure out who you are without anybody becoming suspicious. Of course it's not likely someone will go to the trouble to do that, but there are a few, and it only takes a few to end up having news stories with kids or adults that have been murdered due to poor internet safety habits. And the thing is, you don't ever have to chat one on one with anyone for this to happen.
Now none of that information being out there is bad if you are careful with what you post everywhere, but I personally think everyone should attempt to find themselves through google, attempting to find details of yourself just by putting in a few pieces of information you have posted on one website. Pretty much play the stalker so you can protect yourself. That way you are aware of what is available to someone who really would try to stalk you. So yeah, I think we need a lot more education on internet safety in general, and I think that would be the best way is to teach people to attempt to play the stalker, and to have demonstrations that show how easy it is to find people. Cause you start to put random pieces of info here, random pieces of info there, and eventually it becomes very easy to not only identify you but find out quite a bit about your life.
Not to make anyone paranoid, it's just that facebook is not the only potential danger on the internet. If educated on how facebook works, it's actually one of the safest sites to put your info on. They just need to get people to understand it and change their default settings.
problem is that now you HAVE to link intersts etc to pages on fb which you cant make private... they show up if you search someones profile on google
“The good things don’t always soften the bad, but vice-versa, the bad things don’t necessarily spoil the good things and make them unimportant.”
“Nobody important? Blimey, that’s amazing. Do you know, in nine hundred years of time and space I’ve never met anyone who wasn’t important before.”
“If it’s time to go, remember what you’re leaving. Remember the best. My friends have always been the best of me.”
