With employers now asking for Facebook passwords, there is an increasing outcry from privacy experts about how much social media sharing is too much.
A new STD app, which sifts through Facebook friend info in an effort to determine which ones are carrying STDs, is sure to raise even more eyebrows.
A team at the University of North Carolina’s Center for Infectious Diseases is pushing this approach under the auspices of using the power of social media to prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.
The theory is that Facebook could be used to contact an entire risk group and tell them they’re in danger. For instance, the app could sniff out people who were in the same social circles as people who were at high risk or who’d been infected, then the research team could contact the people in the circle to alert them of their risk.
One of the problems in connecting the dots, however, is that people don’t post their STD status on Facebook in the same way they do a cold or a broken leg. But researchers say it’s a start. Others say they’d rather not have it assumed that they have herpes just because someone in their Facebook circle “Liked” Valtrax. Only time will tell…
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