FacebookNation

on the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog ‘Boo’’ joined Facebook , Boo is the living alter ego of his behind-the-scene owner who never appears in any of the Facebook pictures.

IBM released a new study in April 2012 that identified four emerging digital personalities—efficiency experts, content maestros, social butterflies, and content kings—respectively representing 41, 35, 15, and 9 % of the online population [3]. Efficiency experts are proficient Internet users; content maestros are media con- sumers and gamers on the web and on mobile devices; social butterflies are Facebook and Twitter addicts; and content kings are both consumers and creators of rich media

Prof. Mitja Back ‘Online social networks are so popular and so likely to reveal people’s actual personalities because they allow for social interactions that feel real in many ways. … Facebook is so true to life that encountering a person there for the first time generally results in a more accurate personality appraisal than meeting face to face’

Consumer Reports magazine conducted a survey of 2002 25 % of Facebook users falsified information in their profiles to protect their identity Prof. Patricia Greenfield and researcher Adriana Manago ‘You can manifest your ideal self’’, said Manago, ‘‘You can manifest who you want to be and then try to grow into that. We’re always engaging in self-presentation; we’re always trying to put our best foot forward. Social networking sites take this to a whole new level. You can change what you look like, you can Photoshop your face, you can select only the pictures that show you in a perfect lighting.

Facebook’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg ‘We are our real identities online’

prof. Lori B. Andrews ‘virtually every interaction a person has in the offline world can be tainted by social network information’’

Reid Hoffman spoke of the web of ‘‘real identities generating massive amounts of data’

There is plenty of personally identifiable information (PII) online such as our full name, IP address, phone number, and date of birth. Furthermore, government-issued IDs are required to establish verified accounts on Facebook and Twitter. Is the online world moving towards PII instead of anonymity?

In February 2012, Jacqui Cheng, Senior Apple Editor at Ars Technica, recounted her own experience and 3-year investigation that even if a Facebook user decides to delete uploaded photos for whatever reasons, the ‘‘deleted’’ Facebook photos may still be online indefinitely and are accessible via direct links (URLs) [23]. Cheng first contacted Facebook in 2009 about the issue [24]. She did a follow up with Facebook in 2010. Over three years later, her ‘‘deleted’’ Facebook photos were still online. Facebook responded to Cheng defensively, ‘‘For all practical purposes, the photo no longer exists, and we wouldn’t be able find it if we were asked or even compelled to do so. … It’s possible that someone who previously had access to a photo and saved the direct URL from our content delivery network partner could still access the photo’’

small tag on the updates you post to your Facebook wall, like ‘near New Orleans,

researcher Latanya Sweeney at Carnegie Mellon University found that combinations of few characteristics often uniquely or nearly uniquely identify some individuals in geographically situated populations [

A September 2010 study by Internet security company AVG found that almost a quarter (23 %) of children have online births before their actual birth dates, as today’s parents are building digital footprints for their children prior to and from the moment they are born. In the U.S., 92 % of children have an online presence by the time they are two.