I agree with this - Facebook now provides comprehensive fine-grained privacy settings and it's down to the user to set these appropriately. One problem is that there is still a bit of subtlety as to how fb works; e.g. the visibility of your posts on another person's wall is affected by the privacy settings for both people... presumably fb reverts to whichever is more restrictive. Either way, fb handles it much better than it used to.

I've always been a bit blithe about my personal privacy on the net and I've only just recently started tightening it after having to deal with a stalker (this isn't the first time either). And there's the whole potential employability thing too.

It is possible to have a completely anonymous facebook profile but there's no point in this if your security between social networks is flawed. I think the concept of rings in computer security is useful here - the idea being that inner rings are more privileged and access to them from outer rings is controlled. For me, the inner ring consists of MSN, facebook and Bebo (even though I don't use it anymore), the next ring is forums and the outer ring is other sites like last.fm. This means that since FB and MSN are in the same ring, I don't mind if people on my msn add me on facebook, hence I use the same e-mail address for both and allow people to find me on fb by importing their msn contacts. It also means that I don't tend to add MBers on fb/msn unless I know them relatively well (my fb/msn is mainly for people I know IRL). Like I said, I've only started taking this stuff seriously lately and it's not yet all in place. E.g. the fact that I'm a member of the MB group on last.fm breaches the above ideals.

^ I'm really bad with stuff like that, because I've got quite a few MBers on my Facebook which kinda scares me. lol.

Facebook is the biggest pile of **** ever. Dislike.

Well it is pretty challenging to enforce bottle-tight security policies at the best of times... I know I regret how reckless I've been in this respect in the past. As long as you trust the MBers whom you've added to fb, there shouldn't be a problem.

Actually most of the trouble I've seen caused by facebook is by 'friends' rather than total strangers.

Well then people need to get new friends if they're causing strife... or be more selective in who they add as a friend.

True

But I just think they invite trouble with the nature of stuff that people put on them.

That's why I don't bother with them.,

I have far too many ****s on my Facebook, which is mainly why I hate it. They're mainly not my friends, but people who went to school with me and didn't talk to me there.. yet think it's acceptable to add me on Facebook so they can nose at my life. I guess I shouldn't accept them but I do, I need to utilise the ignore button though. Besides, I don't really use it so they haven't got much to look at.

It dawned on me over 'voting' period how many people I dislike on my Facebook though. Wow.

I don't get cyber bullying. Usually it's done by people like this:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_M06b8WkSQR...arriorsolo.jpg

If people are committing suicide because they post a status about their cat and someone decides to be a bit of a twat, then that's silly. Just delete their post and them. Of course if it's cyber bullying by people will are going to act up on it in person then it's a different matter.

Facebook is a good thing to keep in touch and nosey on friends (which you can't do over E-mail) that said all this 'liking' and spam is making it too annoying to use. But overall it's a decent enough thing to have.

Most of the time the bullying I have seen is not a mean comment about someone's cat dying... It's the spreading of rumours through the internet that can be detrimental to a person's reputation, or the spreading of photographs online, or forwarding of private emails... stuff like that. In younger kids I've seen cyberbullying like things being posted that are really inappropriate and crass. If someone is already feeling insecure about themselves it is definitely something that could lead to mental instability or suicidal thoughts - especially teenagers who are already riding an emotional rollercoaster.