Weaknesses of Facebook's Privacy Policies and Features Essay

Facebook is an American online communication platform that specializes in social networking and social media sharing services. It has a huge online consumer base and is very easily accessible through the use of either its mobile application or visiting the site of the platform via search engines. The platform has taken the social networking service by storm with it's over 2.2billion monthly active users. Users add other users as friends, after which they can exchange messages, share updates, photos, videos links and make use of other applications such as game software applications. Despite the enormous success, a few drawbacks exist on the privacy policies and features which this paper seeks to analyze.

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The use of third-party application software has led to infringement of the users' right to privacy. These applications are reported to have access to the personal data for the millions of Facebook users. As published in a UK based newspaper, the observer, a political consultancy, in early 2018, had access to the biodata for more than fifty million users of Facebook. The app, "This is Your Digital Life" (Evans, 2018), was reported to have been downloaded by over two hundred and seventy-five thousand individuals. The app then accessed information about the users of the app and that of their contacts. It is ironical that the many privacy confirmations and security passwords cannot protect us from the technology employed and the third party application policies formulated by the company.

Facebook is highly susceptible to privacy breakdowns. Research conducted by Jeffery Child and Shawn Starcher (2015) revealed that "...both known and unknown audiences can gain access to posted content adding up to the probability of privacy breakdowns." (Child and Starcher, 2016). Facebook has allowed corporate institutions through data collecting companies such as Experian PLC to access data to modify advertisements and target audience. Moreover, Facebook has been used as a tool to assess, for example, the eligibility of students for employment. On several occasions, the platform has issued public apologies for privacy breakdown. Moreover, Facebook ended some of its partnerships with data brokers with the intention of winning back the public trust.

In my opinion, Facebook will not be able to give their users a hundred percent personal privacy because the technology relies on a system that is constantly relaying information and giving data feedbacks aimed at exceeding customer satisfaction; this can only be possible with the existence of the breach. Besides, previous attempts to seal the loophole in question have failed miserably. For instance, in 2009, the company ended up publicizing the whole content.

It is evident that the cause of these privacy breaches is third party interference in the form of software applications and data collection sites. Therefore, to limit the privacy breach, Facebook should reduce the role of third-party application developers and data collectors. Besides, the site could make use of better ways, such as five second long surveys filled by Facebook users, to assess the market needs of individual Facebook users then relay the information to corporate institutions that can use the data to make targeted advertisements.

References

Child, J. T., & Starcher, S. C. (2016). Fuzzy Facebook Privacy Boundaries: Exploring Mediated Lurking, Vague-Booking, and Facebook Privacy Management. Computers in Human Behavior, 54, 483-490

Evans, Z. R. (2018). The Impact of Mobile Devices and Applications on Consumer Privacy and Security (Doctoral Dissertation, Utica College)