Facebook and Privacy

There are a lot of privacy issues surrounding Facebook. These concerns become even more complicated when libraries, typically models of confidentiality, start joining in order to reap the outreach benefits. Peter Fernandez drove this point home in his extremely redundant article entitled "Online Social Networking Sites and Privacy: Revisiting Ethical Considerations for a New Generation of Technology." It offered little insight not already covered in more comprehensive pieces. The only thing I got out of it was a few fun facts, one of which inspired me to post a privacy settings tutorial on the library Facebook page that I help to administer. 

I found his two other articles to be much more informative and practical. In Fernandez's article "Balancing Outreach and Privacy in Facebook: Five Guiding Decision Points," he outlines some key considerations libraries should ponder before jumping on the Facebook bandwagon. I thought his warnings about inviting users to interact on Facebook were especially prudent. Not that libraries should disallow comments and the like, but they should go into the venture with clear ideas about how they want to moderate any controversial discussions that might arise. I also liked his point about including library apps on a Facebook page. Improving the functionality of a page by adding a catalog search, etc. could actually demand further privacy sacrifices of patrons who wish to utilize the service. We must be careful before adding any seemingly helpful gadgets to our library pages. 

I was especially impressed with Fernandez's report on "Privacy and Generation Y: Applying Library Values to Social Networking Sites." I thought it provided a very insightful discussion of the various shades of privacy and its relevance to social networking and libraries that hearkened back to Danah Boyd's modern take on the topic. Fernandez also offered several sensible suggestions for how academic libraries can take advantage of social networking sites like Facebook in a responsible manner. I thought his advice on updating policies was especially pertinent. Additionally, I found this article to be valuable beyond its intended scope, as well. I appreciated his commentary on the weaknesses of certain types of studies and on the inherent biases withing even academic research.