Membership Ethics

Should Facebook, MySpace or any social network users be able to fully delete their profiles? Not just delete your account, but remove all information relating to your account. Some argues that there shouldn’t be any footprints lingering or information leaked out to others long after someones left the site. A recent article by the NY Times has found that deleting membership to social networking sites is very complicated and at times seems even responsible. The question remains: Is this fair? Should these digital empires, keep their users personal information in their archives?

Most social network users have signed up without realizing the effects and the consequences of displaying personal information on the sites. At the time, they did not realize that the information they placed on the Web site would be permanent. If a Facebook user chooses to delete their account and have no record, it is recommended that they delete every piece of information by hand (line by line) relating to their account, ie. every wall post, message, picture, etc. After all of this, they must e-mail a customer service representative and request the deletion of their account. But even after all that, is the information really gone or is it still sitting in some archive.

 In the defense of most social network users, there is a small disclaimer stating that the information on the Web site even after deletion may still remain in archived files for a reasonable amount of time. What is a reasonable amount of time? Days, weeks, months, years…try months.

As the digital age comes in full, we are entering a gray area. What is the extent of our privacy on the Web and where do our privacy rights fall?

 On one hand, we as users of the Web are openly putting information on the Web where we know it can be seen by potentially thousands of people and perhaps if we are not comfortable with that fact then perhaps we shouldn’t be posting that information. Should users be held accountable for their actions and postings? Or can they argue naivete?

On the other hand, early users were not clearly warned about the implication of posting information on social networks and the permanency of their nature. It should be obvious, but perhaps it isn’t or at least not at first glance? Or is it our right to be clearly informed?

Other questions also remain like should marketers have access to all of this information?Many social networking sites are now thinking about or are currently selling their user’s profile information for data mining about the hard to reach 18-24 year old market? Users were not warned that their personal information would be sold/solicited to marketers. Is this fair? Do these sites have that right? Or did we as users give up our privacy right in posting the information and having a membership with the site? If we did give up our rights to our posted information to the network, is this fair? Where does the line fall? Shouldn’t there be an opt in/opt out option? Will there have to be Do Not Solicit My Profile list similar to that of a Do Not Call List?

There seems to be no true answer to any of these dilemmas.  There are already several court cases in the works concerning privacy rights on-line, but the precedent has not been set.

As word gets out about the permanency of posted content on social networks, will membership come to a halt? Or will membership numbers drop? As of now, numbers have not severely dropped. But is this any indication of the future?

Looking ahead, social networking sites don’t seem to be a fad. But the only people who seem to care are these current dilemmas are those who have been affected by posting information on the sites. For all those who continue to participate in social networking sites, there is plenty you can do to limit the information about you on the site. First of all, use the privacy settings. There are a variety of privacy settings and they can be set to your ideal level of disclosure. Secondly, the key is to be smart about what you post and monitor what others say and monitor those comments/photos. If all else fails, follow a general rule of thumb, if it wouldn’t make your mom proud, then it shouldn’t be on the site.