The Problem with Facebook and Twitter: Things You Can Do To Protect Yourself

BBC is reporting that a Facebook Directory with 100 million users’ personal information is available for download on the Pirate Bay. Click here to see the directory download site. The directory is 2.8 GB.

Here’s what Ron Bowes (the guy who did this) had to say for himself:

We’re sure that everyone in that directory is just thrilled to be called a sucker.

Grade: Not deserving of a PASS, but we’re not laughing at this one.

We have a few points to make here:
1) The information was already publically available. All this person did was gather the information and put it into one spot.
2) If you don’t want your personal information public, set your profile to private and/or don’t post certain information.
3) If you are listed in that directory, that information is now public forever. Thousands of people have already downloaded the file. The downloads cannot be undone.
4) You should expect potential employers to download the file and look at any personal information you may have on there. They reserve the right to not hire or fire you at any time.
5) You should expect people with malicious intentions to download the file as well. If you are listed and your email was public, expect to receive more spam and viruses. Any information in that directory can now be sold for a profit to people who did not download it.
6) That information can used for good purposes, but expect it to be used against you.

Having said all of that, we at The Giggle Test can assure we have not download the file. We’re not interested in knowing 100+ million people’s personal information.

Some things you can do if you are listed in that directory:
1. Set your profile to private immediately. IMPORTANT!
2. Change your profile/username. Obviously it can’t be fake (against FB policy). As an example, change your first name to your nickname and your last name to its initial. Remove middle initials. Do this in such a way so that the profile name in the directory is different enough from your new one that it will be difficult to match your old profile with your new one.
3. Change your profile picture to one you (and anyone else you know) is not in. For example, change it to a picture of a stuffed animal or a tree. It must be a picture you own and have the rights to use, obviously. Do this because your profile picture in one easy way for people to identify you.
4. Remove information like your hometown, birthday, school, employer, etc. Anything that can be linked back to you.
5. Remove tags from pictures your friends posted.
6. Ask your friends to complete the actions on this list.
7. Remove yourself from fan pages, as they are public (and will remain public).
8. Do not accept friend requests from people you do not know in person or haven’t seen in a long time. If someone wants to be your friend, have them tell you IN PERSON their profile/user name. You should do the same.
9. Change your email.
10. Let us know if you think of anything that should be added to the list.

We’ve talked about Facebook; it’s time to discuss Twitter.

The Library of Congress will be listing all public tweets in its records. They will be permanent. If your tweets are public, protect your tweets. However, like this directory, all previously public tweets are permanently public. You can read up on this on your Twitter homepage.

The New York Times recently had an article on the social networking era and the disappearance of privacy: The Web Means the End of Forgetting. Great read. The law and society itself have not caught up with technology, and because of that, we live in a world that is increasingly less private. Mistakes made online are permanent; they don’t go away and people do not forget. Let’s hope we can find a solution to this before movies like EdTV and The Truman Show become reality. Oh wait, with websites like Justin.tv and Ustream.tv, that’s already beginning.

Let us know what you think by commenting below. We’ll have another, more detailed article on this soon.