Being private on social media? Pros and cons of use

Being private on social media? Meanwhile it has become a really important topic, not only for politics, but for everything and everyone. Europe-wide protests on the Upload Filter, Mark Zuckerberg before the US Senate, with hearings on the Cambridge-Analytica scandal and the political influence on elections, up to EU data protection, which is becoming more and more restrictive and hardly permits innovation. How important is privacy in social networks? Do we slow down innovations by too many restrictions?

We have already written extensively on the subject of privacy and its effects in the Social Media Blog. In the meantime, however, some things have changed.

Private his best practice example Facebook

Up to the US election campaign of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, Facebook was doing very well. Facebook was allowed to collect data, third-party providers were allowed to use the data. But at some point Cambridge-Analytica came along and millions of user data were also used to influence political opinion. This incident caused such high waves that Mark Zuckerberg was questioned live before the US Senate.

As a result, many software vendors had to discontinue their services and data access was restricted. But not only that, every user now had the possibility to specify in more detail which information he wants to pass on and which information should be kept private in the settings under “Privacy”. In early summer 2019, the initiative of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg went even further, Facebook & Privacy, is to be one in the future. More specifically, it is about extending the possibilities for users to set privacy.

Also interesting: Development of social networks