Now more than ever, I’m glad I closed my Facebook account and never got into FourSquare. I know it’s completely possible to use these things safely, but I just don’t want to go through the privacy setting maze.

In short: this creeps me out bigtime.

futurejournalismproject:

These Are Girls Around Me (literally).

First answer these:

1. Is your Facebook page public?
2. Do you use Foursquare?

Then you’re probably game for search results on the app Girls Around Me, a geolocation based maps app that alerts you to girls (or guys) around you, based on your location. Using foursquare check-ins, the app finds girls in your neighborhood, and pulls their Facebook profile information for you viewing pleasure.

We tried it out and found these girls (above) around our office in NYC. It’s a little bit horrifying but a perfect example to consider the question we raised yesterday: how to decide what is public/private on Facebook and Twitter. Twitter seemed fair-game for pulling information from public tweets. But Facebook, once again, is complicated.

How many people actually bother to change their privacy settings when doing it seems so complicated?

via Cult of Mac:

Girls Around Me isn’t an app you should use to pick up girls, or guys for that matter. This is an app you should download to teach the people you care about that privacy issues are real, that social networks like Facebook and Foursquare expose you and the ones you love, and that if you do not know exactly how much you are sharing, you are as easily preyed upon as if you were naked. I can think of no better way to get a person to realize that they should understand their Facebook privacy settings then pulling out this app.

FJP: Now, if you want to make your Facebook private: Here is some help.

Photos: screenshots from the FJP’s trial run of the app.