December’s Tony Delroy’s Nightlife looked at the risks of social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Along with being a great way to communicate with family, friends and colleagues using online services can have some unexpected effects.
Program podcast
A recording of the program is available from the ABC’s Tony Delroy’s Nightlife webpage. You can listen to it through the site or download it and listen to it as a podcast.
Topics covered
Tony and Paul covered a range of topics including the following questions;
- Are we living in the social media age?
- What is social media is?
- Why people use social media?
- How some folk have come unstuck using social websites?
- Can doing the wrong thing hurt your reputation or career?
- What the risks are during the christmas party season?
- Are there too many social media services?
- How businesses can really use them?
- Where will these services go next?
Listeners’ questions
We had a great range of questions and comments from listeners and those we promised to get back to included how to shut down your Facebook account and the link to report abuse on the service.
Reporting Facebook abuse
If you’re being harassed on Facebook, you can report misuse at Facebook’s Help Centre. Their page includes instructions on dobbing in underage users, blocking irritating people and how to use their privacy settings.
Deleting a Facebook profile
Leaving Facebook is not easy, so on the Netsmarts website we have the detailed instructions on deleting your Facebook account.
Note with these instructions that you need to disable any applications you may have installed on Facebook before deleting the account. When you go to the Applications page you may be shocked at how many things are connecting to your page.
Do we have too many social media services?
Tony asked if we have too many social media platforms.
This is a topic we’ve covered previously on the website and while there’s no doubt many of the services around today won’t survive, some will become increasingly become important.
Next Nightlife tech program
Our next program will be on February 9 next year. We will probably have some spots over the summer break and we’ll let newsletter subscribers know about them as soon as we do.
Unfortunately I couldn’t ask this question before the show finished pretty quickly, but I hope you can help.
About 2 weeks ago I tried to look for some way to count visitor numbers to a page, and tried looking through the help function.
I started on this page
https://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=116512998432353#What-are-Insights
Then it took me to this page
https://www.facebook.com/insights
…. I was unsure so wanted to just “look around” ….. so I clicked “create app” thinking it wouldn’t be a big problem …….
Then I was very unsure but I “clicked” that I allow/ give permission to Facebook to access all my info, friends etc etc …..
I must have let FACEBOOK have access to all my info.
I don’t have any “app” on the app link and there’s no reference anywhere to what I did above.
Is there any way that I can take away this permission? Or is this permission the same as what you “clicked” when you agree to be part of Facebook?
ANY help you can give me would be really appreciated.
Thanks Paul
Hi Desperate, you’ve already given all of your information to Facebook so don’t fret about that.
With the creating app function, you’ll find the details in the Facebook Developers Page and you can change the settings there.
Some fascinating points were raised in the program tonight.
I have been on Facebook since 2007. My privacy settings are as tight as it gets and I’ve disabled apps, and I check and update to maintain this each time the change things around. My password is more difficult to crack than a welded chastity belt. But I still worry, especially since I can still download a ‘file’ of my entire Facebook history. Regardless of peoples’ rights to access this information, somebody, somewhere, still has it. Even if it is ‘secure’. And I also know that the people that guard it have a lot more money than me – the kind of money you can use to buy lawyers, if you get my drift. Hypothetically, I feel quite powerless against the misuse of my information, especially when I know it has a dollar value and it could easily be abused without my knowledge.
The obvious solution is to get off Facebook, but it’s become so ingrained in our culture and the way that I interact with people that I really can’t go without it. It would be like losing a limb – sure life goes on, and you adapt, but you’re forever at a disadvantage.
So, aside from being incredibly stringent or disconnected, what are my other options? Isn’t it a bit scary that I don’t really have any?
More alarming still, there are no ‘internet police’ or any unified, consistent, international laws that can really enforce the rules. Am I supposed to put my trust in a company that would like to value itself at several billion dollars and just hope for the best?
Unfortunately Melle, you do have to put your trust into Facebook and any other social media network you use. It’s the nature of beast.
If you want to use the service but are concerned, it’s best to restrict the amount of personal information that you post to the site.
Hi there, I listened with interest re the social media traps. There was mention of posting the info on the Delroy site. Not able to find it. Can you help?
Up and running now, hope you find it useful.