Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eCampus News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

Students aren’t ‘nonchalant’ about Facebook privacy, report says

Frequent Facebook users are more likely to change their privacy settings.
Frequent Facebook users are more likely to change their privacy settings.

A close look at college students’ reaction to Facebook privacy policies revealed concern about online identities as news outlets pushed the issue to the forefront with increasing coverage in 2009 and 2010, according to a report released this month.

Eszter Hargittai, an associate professor at Northwestern University’s communication studies department, and Danah Boyd, a researcher for Microsoft Research and a fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, found that most Facebook members altered their privacy settings in the past year while privacy advocates railed against gaps in the social media site’s identification security.

Hargittai and Boyd based their report on a survey of University of Illinois Chicago students conducted during the 2008-09 academic year and the 2009-10 school year. The researchers had a response rate of 45 percent among more than 1,000 students surveyed. The researchers’ report is published in the journal First Monday.…Read More

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Facebook adjusts privacy controls after complaints

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted that "a lot of people are upset with us."
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted that "a lot of people are upset with us."

In Facebook’s vision of the web, users no longer would be alone and anonymous. Sites would reflect users’ tastes and interests—as expressed on the online social network—and users wouldn’t have to fish around for news and songs that interest them.

Standing in the way, however, is growing concern about privacy from Facebook users, a large percentage of whom are high school and college-age students. Most recently, users have complained that the site forced them to share personal details with the rest of the online world or have them removed from Facebook profiles altogether.

Responding to users’ concerns, Facebook on May 26 announced that it’s simplifying its privacy controls and applying them retroactively, so users can protect the status updates and photos they have posted in the past.…Read More

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