Are you a "friend" to a number of persons on Facebook? Many people are and many people have their concerns and reservations about being on Facebook.
Facebook was founded in 2004 by 25 year old Mark Zuckerberg and his roommates, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes, who were computer science majors at Harvard. Today Mark is CEO while Dustin and Chris are Co-Founders of this unbelieveably successful world-wide social network website. The company has headquarters in Palo Alto, California and Dublin, England. In 2008, the estimated revenue of Facebook was $300 million!
Users can "choose fan pages according to their interests to connect and interact with friends and strangers". Users also set their profile on private or public. Close friends can send messages and add the user as a friend. Facebook permits users to update their profiles as a way to notify their close friends. If users set their profile on public, this "allows any stranger or acquaintance to contact the user which results in lack of privacy".
Facebook users pay no fees to use this website with revenue being creating from advertising. Facebook partners with Microsoft in creating banner advertising. When creating their profiles, users can include photos, lists of personal interests, exchange private or public messages and join groups of friends. Applications have now been created on the Facebook Platform that allows users to play games such as Chess and Scrabble with friends!
There have been some problems in addition to the pleasantries of social networking. Some governments and universities have blocked or banned access to Facebook. There have been concerns regarding the use of Facebook as a means of surveillance. Other concerns have surfaced regarding the difficulty of deleting user account or user information. Information posted on Facebook can be used by others to cause harm to students, for stalking, creating emotional distress and identity theft.
Facebook standards do not allow profanity and users can anonymously report offensive pictures and content. Universities and employers are beginning to use Facebook for background checks and general information gathering.
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