Is Facebook Safe?

I was once asked if Facebook is safe. In some ways Facebook is safe. For example, connections to Facebook are done over a secure connection so that data sent and received is encrypted and meaningless to outsiders who try to listen in. Also, Facebook gives us control over who can see what we post. So, with a little knowledge of how to change the Facebook privacy settings, we can control the privacy of what we post. However, there are many ways that Facebook is not safe. For example, what does Facebook do with the data we send it once it gets it? We hear all the time of government requests for data, such as in this recent news article. What if we knew the government had access to everything we posted to Facebook? While this is definitely an extreme and most likely not the reality, we should be aware that anything we post to the internet can potentially be accessed by anyone. This is something to keep in mind as we use the internet!