Everyone knows Facebook as the biggest social networking website in the world. It launched in February 2004 by Mark Zuckenberg, and has grown drastically to 600 million active users by January 2011.  On Facebook, users are able to create profiles with photos, list their interests, contact information, and various other forms of personal information. Users can even communicate with friends via Facebook’s chat feature and they can also contact other users through private or public messages.

Even though Facebook is the most popular social networking website out there, that still does not stop the criticism regarding the online privacy of its users. Facebook users can set up their privacy settings– which means they control what others can and cannot see.  However, there are still many users on Facebook that continue to post all of their personal information, such as their cell phone number and address, without even worrying about whether or not people will take advantage of their personal information.

Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, talked about the subject of social networking in an interview with Russia Today and called Facebook “the most appalling spy machine that has ever been invented.”

“Here we have the world’s most comprehensive database about people, their relationships, their names, their addresses, their locations, their communications with each other, and their relatives, all sitting within the United States, all accessible to US Intelligence.” Assange also believes that Facebook is a giant database of names and records about people, maintained voluntarily by its users but developed for the U.S. intelligence to use.

So what does that mean?

Every time you put something on Facebook such as date of birth, hometown, relationship status, religion, etc.–you basically make it public not just to your “Friends”, but to many companies and especially to the U.S. intelligence.  According to Julian Assange, the fact that U.S. Intelligence agencies have full access to its records is very dangerous for everyone’s privacy.

Assange also said, “Everyone should understand that when they add their friends to Facebook, they are doing free work for United States intelligence agencies, and building this database for them.”

At the end of his interview, Assange continued to trash the media industry–claiming that it is heavily distorting reality to the public and doing very little to prevent wars and remove corrupt governments from power. “It really is my opinion that the media, in general, are so bad, we have to question whether the world would be better off without them altogether” he said.

Watch the full interview here: http://rt.com/news/wikileaks-revelations-assange-interview/

What’s your take on this? Do you think Facebook is the greatest invention ever? or Do you think Facebook has truly distorted people’s individuality and privacy? Drop us a line below and let us know what you think!