Can users control how private they are on social media?

How I set my Facebook privacy?

The attractive side of social network is needless to clarify. Yet, connection comes with prices. The Internet and SNS somehow downgrades the level of privacy. Therefore, I tried whatever I can to protect my Facebook privacy.

Only my friends can view my newsfeed posts, and they are limited to many of my past posts. I only receive friend requests from “friends of friends”. Anybody can search for my account using email and phone number, but these two are hidden from my newsfeed.

On the timeline, only my friends can post on, and I have to preview the posts they tagged me in.

The price of connection – Why I chose the above settings.

Obviously, people don’t just expose every single fact about themselves that easily. What comes into public is selective and most of them should be common things. But people cannot stop their friends/acquaintance (or even strangers) from uploading information/stories related to them. Anybody can disclose the other’s information.

Willingly or not, public sites such as Facebook have made people to reconstruct “their conceptions of privacy” to fit in with the “networked nature”. That is, going from total “individualistic” into blending in the public “without always being public” – using privacy settings (Marwick & boyd, 2014, pp. 1051).

Can I control my status of private on social media? (Or did the privacy setting work?)

It worked to some extends. There is nothing much different from my settings. My newsfeed is under control, yet I cannot do the same thing about the posts (referred to me) on the others’ feed.

How should I use Facebook in the future?

Achieving privacy is a sophisticating matter yet attempting to put it under control is still better than “let it be”. Because one day if your sensitive information is spoiled all over the place (oops, your high school fellow spilled your tea), it is not just about admitting or disclaiming your responsibility that can resolve the situation. The moment you decide to be more “updated” (by sign in for one Facebook account), you have lost your utmost control of privacy.

Unfortunately, I still choose to connect. I would try my best to seal all sensitive things, put them in one pandora box, lock it and digest the key. Additionally, I bet I should be prepared for the worst crisis on privacy.

I wish you luck and privacy, my friends.

Reference

Marwick, A. E., & Boyd, D. (2018). Understanding privacy at the margins. International journal of communication, 12(2018), 1157 – 1165.