Facebook Inc.(NASDAQ:FB), with over 1.189 billion monthly active users is facing threat of a decelerating user base, as majority of teens have issues related to privacy threats on the site. Facebook is nearly extinct in developed states of North America and their growth is only being observed in developing nations. It is vital for the social media titan to fix the privacy related issues and set regulations to provide warnings to users on a periodic basis, updating them about the privacy status of their profiles. The default settings for privacy on Facebook are public, and many people often forget to set privacy settings as per their requirements. Features like Facebook like and graph search are totally killing privacy of users and forcing them to shift to alternate platforms.
The website BestComputerScienceSchools.net recently published a thoroughly researched Infographic showing Facebook’s checkered relationship with privacy, and what users can do to protect their profiles and personal information from cyber rats. A couple of interesting facts related to Facebook and tips to protect privacy of user’s profiles are listed below.
- Facebook, with over 200 billion posts per day is number one in terms of American user engagement for a single website. It has covered more than 76% of the Smartphone market and accounts for 23% of all mobile apps used.
- The United states accounted for 53% of total Facebook data user account requests world-wide in the first six months of 2013. To be precise, the recorded figure was around 11,000 in the United states, followed by 3,245 in India, 1975 in the U.K, 1886 in Germany and 1705 in Italy.
- Nearly 600,000 Facebook logins are compromised every day and 1 in 4 consumers whose online data has been breached will later become victim of identity fraud.
- Close to 55% of teens have given out their personal information to strangers on Facebook and about 24% of teens who have had compromising information were made public without their permission.
- Â About 25% of users claim to have been stalked online, and 10% of children are victims of cyber bullying.
 Tips To Ensure Safe Facebook Browsing Experience.
- Set the privacy settings such as email identities, employment details and phone numbers accessible only to friends. Name all members of your friend list according to social circles like family, friends and  colleagues and change the settings before posting to control who can view the post.
- Turn off the location feature especially while using the mobile device and avoid using unsecured WiFi networks or honey pots (change password immediately if you encounter such networks). Change passwords at least once a month and avoid repeating same passwords.
- More than 200 million photos are uploaded on Facebook everyday. It is important for users to check privacy settings for photos and avoid letting friends tag any photos without your permission.
- Only 34% of parents monitor their children’s social networking activities. Children in age group of 10-13 account for 22% and become targets of online predators. It is vital for parents or adults to discuss privacy and security with their kids and make sure that they understand what dangers lurk online.
- Adults should review their child’s posts so as to teach them the acceptable and non-acceptable things before posting them online.
- It is important for parents to befriend their children on Facebook, not only to keep a watch on their online activities but at the same time care should to be taken to avoid posting awkward comments and provide them required privacy.
