Facebook has announced that they will be reshaping their privacy in order to give the user more control over who can and cannot view certain parts of your Facebook page. These privacy controls will allow users to separate their friends, family and co-workers into three separate groups allowing each group to view different parts of the user’s Facebook page. This has made me beg the question: why do we need privacy? If we are willing to broadcast almost anything on Facebook, then why should we be bothered that certain people may see it?
I think the answer to this question lies in two directions. The first of which is it is not that we do not want anyone seeing our information; it is that we want the control over who may and who may not view it. It is more the control over the content than the content itself. One of the most important factors of websites such as Facebook, MySpace and Bebo is the element of customisation and if we are not able to customise who may view our website, then an element of customisation has been lost. Linked to this is there are actually certain groups of people who we do not want to see our webpage. Parents for example are a god example of someone who we don’t want to see our photos. Potential job employers are another group who we feel should not be allowed to view our page. Often job employers will visit potential employees Facebook pages to see the type of person we are.
The other direction that this question leads us in is that the fact that we broadcast our deepest and darkest feelings to the world is not that we want them to be read by others; but more simply that we want them to be written down on paper. Often people feel that by writing their problems down is a good way of releasing or at least making them more tangible. Blogs are another good way of doing this; they are almost like virtual diaries. Here people can reflect on their day-to-day lives in a way that is easy to remember and go back to. All in all, privacy is a very interesting issue. We do not like being spied upon or having our privacy invaded, yet we are willing to broadcast our private issues to the world.
