To FB or not to FB,that's the question

[addy]

i don't mind my stuff being public,it's just other people[authoroties] deciding to use it or not i have something against

Then you'll definitely have an issue with FB. Here's part of what they have to say regarding content you post on Facebook:

"For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (IP content), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it."


Nice. Also, they basically reserve the right to peruse, use, and process info people provide on facebook, and use it as data/ consumer profiling for their advertisers. As long as they exclude individuals' names, they don't count that as breaking privacy.

However, if you are willing to deal with all of that then there are certainly benefits. It's indeed a very easy way to keep touch and interact with family and friends, not to mention practically everybody is on facebook. And as Mark posted, one of the advantages of facebook can also be what's intimidating about it: if you don't manage the stuff you put up on FB (which most people rarely do), then you're potentially making public to people you barely know things that you normally won't share with them.