Sara Lynn McCall
or public curiosity, it will cause more individual harm than public good. While the Internet is commonly public territory, many adolescents feel that the information they share with their so-called friends on social networks is private. However, it is naïve to think that setting a site to private truly guarantees privacy. What is posted on the Internet stays on the Internet, and the information revealed on private sites can easily be made public and used against someone. In the article, “Social Media and Student Reporting: Figuring out Privacy and Ethics,” Mark Goodman says, “The ethical issues are a lot more challenging than the legal issues. Legally, there is not a reasonable expectation of privacy when you are posting on a social networking site, even when they are restricting their ‘quote’-‘unquote,’ friends” (12). Many social network users feel that what they post is private material that will not leave the walls of Facebook or MySpace. It seems comd down to a control issue. When people post personal information online, they are making a decision for themselves to share bits and pieces of their lives with the people they have chosen to have access to their site. On the other hand, they generally do not believe anyone, journalists included, has the right to read, verify, and possibly publish what they have written. Reporters must becareful when using social networking sites as a reporting tool. It is easy to assume that because society is so willing to use social networks as a means to share otherwise personal thoughts, feelings, and emotions with friends, acquaintances, or even strangers that they do not care how their privacy is protected or their information is distributed; according to Solove, this is far from the truth. Facebook received a shocking response from users when they created a feature called News Feeds in 2006. This new feature sent notifications to a person’s friends within their network notifying them of any profile updates or changes made. This feature allowed friends to see when they became friends with someone new, wrote on someone’s profile, or changed their relationship status. The sharing of information without the user’s permission outraged nearly 700,000 Facebook patrons. This uproar caused Facebook, who seemed to assume that their users were not the type that cared about personal privacy, to make News Feeds a feature that could be turned off. The feelings towards privacy, as well as the laws that protect it, must continue to change and adapt as technology continues to advance our means of communication. Facebook, apparently, did not learn its lesson after the News Feeds outrage. Solove discusses two more incidents where Facebook launched new features without informing users beforehand. In 2007, Facebook created an advertising system known as Social Ads and Beacon. Social Ads was a means of endorsement where Facebook would send a person’s name, image, and positive review of a product or movie in an advertisement hoping this would entice other users to purchase certain products. If a user
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