Earlier this month, several celebrities, including Victoria Justice, Jennifer Lawrence and Ariana Grande, had their personal iCloud account hacked and nude photos leaked to the public. This incident, along with other new social media updates, sparked public concern over privacy, the largest concern being the safety of the Facebook Messenger application.
“It’s important to know that this isn’t a brand new app,” said Communication Studies Professor Stephen Klien. “Facebook Messenger has been around since 2011, but it’s been in this recent release that they are dropping messaging from the stand-alone Facebook app and they are having folks go to their Messenger app.”
Even with the rising concerns over privacy and social media accounts, junior Chelsea Fray understands the necessity for multiple apps.
“It’s a pain that they require it to message on your phone, but at the same time it  ensures that everyone is using the same technology to communicate, so it simplifies things,” said Fray.
Senior Kelsey Wrightwood, a communication studies major, agrees, and continues to use the app without major concern.
“I downloaded it and it like it. I know it’s been talked about it being a huge deal about privacy, but honestly they have all of my information anyways and I’m not saying anything that they can use against me so I don’t care. I just want Facebook on my phone,” said Wrightwood.
Social media goers can still can use Facebook in other ways, such as the Facebook mobile website or on their personal computer if they still have privacy concerns.
Klein compares the privacy issue concerns to misinformation of the application.
“The panic over privacy issues with regard to Facebook Messenger is completely overblown and it’s coming from a basic misunderstanding of what the application does,” said Klein. “It’s the same sort of thing as on the Facebook app you would need to give permission to your phone to upload pictures. Most folks in the college age cohorts have been posting pics to Facebook for years. They’ve been using snap chat. They’ve been using Skype. They’ve been using Google hangout and things like that which have all the same functionality. So it’s in very real sense not any different than what most college students have already been using with social media.”
While privacy may not be of the highest concern, hacking, on the other hand, is worth discussing. With regards to the iCloud celebrity hacking, Klein said it was “…an invasion of privacy and…awful.”
However, Klein explains that it is a separate issue and that self-regulation is a simple way to protect your account.
“If you don’t want big companies knowing stuff about you that you wouldn’t normally broadcast about yourself on the street, then don’t do social media.”