Facebook and Twitter have become powerful social and web 2.0 tools. Friends can stay connected with friends living in other countries. The sites are recognized as being marketing tools for businesses more and more each day. Though, what about security? Are they both equally secured or is one leading the other?
For both sites, some common sense needs to be employed when it comes to releasing personal information. Facebook allows you to exclude anyone not in your respected and known groups through their ‘friends’ system. Twitter accomplished this by having the option to follow a conversation or not.
But this doesn’t stop your profile being found and targeted by spammers.
Let’s look at the issues currently being addressed by both sites. Recently, Twitter was hacked and this caused a lot of controversy over its ability to secure personal details. The prevalence of this came to a head when Britney Spears and a St Louis Cardinals Manager by the name of Tony La Russa found fake profiles being used in their names.
Twitter are combating this problem with a verified account service which adds a seal stating it is verified. Though this feature initially will only be open to the elite few i.e. celebrities, public officials and blue chip corporations. However, this service does need to open up to everyone quite quickly as recent security compromises have raised the red flag on ‘how secure is social networking with Facebook and Twitter?’
The emerging threats have raised concerns globally amongst industry practitioners and online social communities. Real-time communications are now so widely used, not to mention other sites like MySpace, that the need for further security procedures has become a requirement.
So, which is more secure? Is it down to the user’s common sense or is one more secure than the other? Let’s look at some salient facts. Facebook updates your page as it is updated in real time as does Twitter. Facebook changed some aspects such as no longer having the user messages begin with the user’s name. Also, Facebook further protects privacy by a recent change to the status message. It used to be ‘What are you doing right now?’, and has suitably changed to ‘what’s on your mind’.
This introduced a profound difference in the level of security and does place Facebook on a higher level of security as compared to Twitter. There is a mutual agreement between accounts to become friends that can’t be altered in any way. Conversely on Twitter, users can decide to follow you easily. Twitters simply look for conversations that they find useful, or a sales angle, and follow the conversation with no hindrance from the user whom started the conversation. Yes, you can then block them but you are already being followed – username known.
Surely, this infringes on personal privacy and freedom. Do you want those people to follow you?? Reciprocation goes out the window.
In April, a password stealing attack by some frivolous phishers compromised Facebook’s security credibility. A “justfuns” scam directed users via a mail box message to a web site full of spam messages like Viagra ads and such like advertising. Twitter fell foul to the “mikeyy” worm attacking user accounts in May which hijacked user profiles and sent unauthorized tweets through them.
Again, we must come back to common sense. Has your username and password become ubiquitous? If so, it’s just a matter of time before it will be found by criminals whom use scripts to search the web for a defined set of passwords, so reset your password often. Additionally, Facebook is safer than email, much less chance of being phished despite worms like “mikeyy”.
In conclusion, Twitter allows many sites like Tweetdeck and Twhirl to access twitter accounts without having to log into twitter: this is a security compromise. Your information becomes very available to 3rd party companies plus users can follow you whenever they desire.
To that end, right now, Facebook offers more security than the more accessible Twitter.
Popularity: 2% [?]
June 18th, 2009 at 7:15 am
Yeah still facebook have more secure application than twitter.
June 23rd, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Handsdown facebook. However, I believe the best security is the limiting of what and how much information the user gives out.
June 24th, 2009 at 6:44 am
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June 24th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
I sink FB more protected of course, twitter not so popular
June 29th, 2009 at 9:45 pm
WLooks like we are trying to determine the best among the worst
. Any social networking site is vulnerable and more so based on the details we give in. No site is secure with all the personal details displayed and available for everyone to see!!! Aslong its an entertainment or for business its different … but talking about privacy and security is more funny here (Social Networking Sites).
This is my opinion…
Regards
Anita Patt
July 22nd, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Handsdown facebook. However, I believe the best security is the limiting of what and how much information the user gives out.
July 23rd, 2009 at 4:32 am
My opinion is that facebook is more secure. Interesting article! Regards
August 4th, 2009 at 9:37 am
Facebook is the best! Thank you very much for the article! Very useful!
regards,
Emanuel
September 22nd, 2009 at 8:59 am
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November 27th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
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thanks for share
December 7th, 2009 at 12:02 am
I can’t tell but I can advice though that we limit what we share in these networking sites..let us leave some privacy to our own life:-)
December 12th, 2009 at 10:44 am
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December 24th, 2009 at 5:03 am
Even more, safe use facebook to twitter regards, Emanuel
February 3rd, 2010 at 7:53 am
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April 2nd, 2010 at 2:07 pm
I would have to go with Facebook being more secure since you can actually control who sees all your info unlike Twitter.
April 8th, 2010 at 5:38 pm
Facebook for sure is more secure. I don’t really like Twitter myself.
June 14th, 2010 at 1:47 pm
Obviously facebook is secure. Twitter shouldnt even be called secure. Come on! That day i opened an account in Twitter n i dint like it at all. everything was so open to every other person. And hello! Y the competing? Check it out for yourself Facebook is most used and most famous. Twitter must be famous among some people in a few countries. Hands up Facebook!
June 22nd, 2010 at 11:13 am
hey facebook is really not secure these days. and all the things you share are visible to other users nowadays due to some IP error. its really slow too. every damn person uses facebook and for no good reason. we should come back to reality. facebook has got us addicted nothing else. we can overcome it earily!
October 24th, 2010 at 3:08 am
What a nice post my friend. I am a facebook addict and mostly spend my time playing some playfish games and just talking out with my friends. Surely, there are so many ways we can use facebook and I really love using it. I hope they have something more new to come for all of us.
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May 4th, 2011 at 7:31 am
AVG says Twitter is safer than Facebook,wow!
http://www.avgthreatlabs.com/sitereports/domain/facebook.com
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August 7th, 2011 at 3:47 am
I just love twitter. I lock my account so People don’t see anything and I only accept requests from people I know. Ever heard of the facebook killer? Ya. Nothing like that can happen on fwitter.
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