by James Jewett | Staff Writer

In the world of social media and online friendships, Facebook reigns supreme as a hot spot for anyone with an internet connection. Still, recent controversy has emerged surrounding social networking giant Facebook and search-engine Google when it became clear that Facebook hired a PR firm to display flaws in Google’s rising social networking status. The plans were foiled by a blogger who was hired to write bad reviews on Google’s Social Circles system. Some have said that Facebook has gone to far and that instead of worrying about other social networks, it should start worrying about its own users. Google is looking into filing charges against Facebook. Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, denies its smear campaign against Google and instead points out privacy violations.

Facebook continues to face privacy issues. Most recently, it was reported that advertisers and third parties are able to access users’ accounts via Facebook apps. For some, there is an obvious solution to keeping personal information private.

“Don’t put up stuff you don’t want the world to know,” sophmore Deanna Carr said.

Others, however, haven’t had any problems with Facebook’s privacy settings.

“No trouble at all, they work very well,” sophmore Justin Butrico said.

“I have had no problems with privacy settings. I keep mine pretty tight so I don’t have any problems,” sophmore Harrison Clark said.