This article was published on
We have all heard about how social media networks are crossing a red line in terms of keeping the privacy of their members… well private.
The commonly accepted wisdom seems to be that if we are going to go online, use Facebook, Twitter, or google plus, then it follows that we should accept to reveal more about ourselves than we had originally bargained. There are those that say this is fair trade as they really don’t have anything to hide, whilst others, who don’t have anything to hide either are not so sure.
But it’s one thing to hand over your cell phone information, private address, names of spouse, children etc.. and quite another when it impacts your friends.
We have all seen posts of people we had never heard of before appear on our Facebook wall. This is one of the network’s more “endearing” qualities as it puts people in the same room, even those we would never otherwise knowingly associate with.
How this is relevant to you I hear you ask? Well, imagine that the Police send a request to Facebook for information on a particular account.
Do you know what is in this request, and what Facebook sends the cops in response to a subpoena?
Here it is, a 71-page document that shows the actual subpoena (8 pages) and the remaining 62 pages being the response from Facebook.
Have a look. I might surprise you!
Above document embedded from a feature titled “Hunting the Craiglist Killer” from The Boston Phoenix