Social networks are serious about privacy...right?

We as people use the internet in numerous ways to communicate with other people just about every day. We use them so much that we become comfortable with putting more and more information about ourselves on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr without fearing or considering the consequences of doing such things. Most people today put their full trust in these sites thinking that they will keep them protected.

This illustration I found at http://0.tqn.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/2/U/3/Facebook-Privacy-Issues.jpg targets those who use Facebook and provides a good example on just how private Facebook really can be. It is intended to caution those who use Facebook to think about what they choose to put on Facebook because you never know who could be reading that information. It's comical, in showing that the man to left of the image thinks Facebook is taking privacy seriously and that no one could know anything he didn't want them to know when in all actuality the Facebook CEO in the middle is making fun of him for thinking such things and letting his information leak to others. The users are pretty much being criticized like the person in the left of the image. The illustrator of this image uses it in a pathos type of appeal, scaring readers to think about what they're doing. It's saying you never know or can see what about you when you put your information out there. Maybe, Facebook just doesn't take privacy as serious as users think and don't intend to.

At the end of the day, we as digital natives and or settlers need to be cautious about the information we choose to put online. There doesn't need to be anything on social networking sites that we wouldn't want others to know even if you think only your friends can see it. The truth is networking sites have the right to change their terms at any given time which may include changing your privacy setting to a more public view. Who's to say that only a certain group of people can see stuff on your profile? You never know who could be watching or what could be done with your information.