True or False: Your privacy rights are diminished in social
media. Most people would probably say this is true, and there are
certainly court decisions asserting that people give up privacy
interests once they post otherwise private matters about themselves
on social media.
But blaming social media for diminished privacy may be a little
like blaming a nudist colony for diminished privacy. It's not
so much the destination, as the participant's choices of where
to go and what to do there.
Consider an individual's postings on Facebook. A Facebook
user may view his or her personal Facebook page as his or her
domain, a little like his or her home. But a Facebook page is just
one link in a colossal voluntary worldwide computer network. Except
with the most stringent privacy settings, postings you make on
Facebook can readily become known to many others.
