Facebook is at it again with the changes that everybody hates. First it was timeline and now it's this. Facebook has a new software that scans and monitors Facebook posts, photo's, and chats to check for criminal activity.
Many people are speaking out in protest saying that this is a violation of privacy. It may be if the software is scanning chats that have nothing suspicious in them. Facebook Chief Security Officer Joe Sullivan said,
"We've never wanted to set up an environment where we have employees looking at private communications, so it's really important that we use technology that has a very low false-positive rate."
But even with that low-false positive rate, will it still protect our privacy while still protecting people from sexual predators, murderers, and other criminals?
If you are are chatting with someone who you aren't friends with, who you recently became friends with, who you have no mutual friends with, who you talk to very little, or if there is a significant age gap, or a significant distance from each other than the software will focus on you.
If they find these or certain words "suspicious activity" the software will flag the chat or post to be reviewed by a Facebook employee. It is then their decision whether to go further with it and possibly contact the police. So it is not all some computer's decision if your a criminal or not.
There have been multiple success stories that come out of programs like this, and plenty of people caught, or put to justice. And some people who have been potentially saved by programs like this. It's a double edged sword because you usually can't have safety, with privacy. Maybe your life will be saved because of a program like this.
The world is changing and the criminals of the world are changing with it. So companies like Facebook need to change their ways to protect their users.
But if the software flubs than we might have a privacy issue. We will just have to see how it plays out in the coming months.
-Rachael The Ginger
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