In a country like Costa Rica where more than half of the population lives online, few stop to ever thing what happens to the information once posted online and even if then deleted. The answer is simple: all the information that into the internet, stays on the net even in you think that it has been erased.
So, be careful and best to think about this before posting, making the information public.
For example, a picture posted on Facebook or statement or comment or message, even if you choose not to publish it (making it private) can become part of a statistic, report, etc., even if that was not your inteniton.
According to sources like TechCrunch, comments and other posts, even if you write them only in the comments fields and then never publish it, remain online.
Getting stats from the likes of Facebook – the world’s largest social network, with over 1.15 billion monthly active users – is almost impossible, according to TechCrunch who also says it has obtained never before published metrics showing Facebook’s international growth, sending some partners a playfully illustrated eMagazine called The Annual, but TC acquired a copy from a source and the stats inside are serious business. The report divulges user counts for some key international markets.
This not only happens on Facebook.
We are sucked into thinking that all registration is free and so is the site’s operation. The business behind social networking is profiling all the information about the user, which we give up for free.
In different social networks information is stored even though many times it has been deleted, believing our data is gone. At least it doesn’t appear on the wall or posts or whatever terminology the site or app uses, but it is probably being kept and being reported on.
[sws_yellow_box box_size=”100″] Nothing comes from nothing (Latin: ex nihilo nihil fit) is a philosophical expression of a thesis first argued by Parmenides. It is associated with ancient Greek cosmology, such as is presented not just in the opus of Homer and Hesiod, but also in virtually every internal system – there is no break in between a world didn’t exist, since it couldn’t be created ex nihilo in the first place. [/sws_yellow_box]
And interesting revelation by several tech sites indicates some level of self-censorship, where users write out a post, upload a photo or make a comment, then at the last nano second decide not to post and/or move away from the site or app. Men, it appears tend to regret more than women, deleting their posts without publishing them.
The surprse is, that even though the post was never published or made public, some social networking sites trap that information and store it somewhere, to be used in some way.
It all starts at the account set up, this is where you are asked questions about yourself, your preferences, likes, etc. all part of the Free account. Facebook, for example, reminds its users periodically to complete their profile or update. Information that we get to them freely and for free!
The next time you are on a social networking site, remember on the internet we DO NOT have the right to be forgotten.
