Week Two- Privacy in Social Media on BeatzBurne

Privacy in social media is a substantial factor for BeatzBurne users. With video chat, blog forums, and instant messaging being featured on the website, it can be easy for users to offer out too much information. To ensure that our affiliates are blogging safely BeatzBurne offers the feature to categorize individuals as followers or friends as soon as a request is sent. If the member knows the person sending the request outside of the internet and feels comfortable offering personal information, chatting, and blogging with this person, they are defined as a friend. If the member  does not know the person sending the request but feels comfortable sharing music files with one another, they are categorized as a follower.  A friend has access to video chat, instant messaging, and personal information about the user such as what tour dates they have attended. A follower is merely someone who enjoys the same music as another user and would like to share files together. When sending a friend request the user must answer two personal questions about the member they are requesting to be friends with to make sure that the user truly does know this individual. Questions can range from "Where is this user originally from?" to "What are this user's hobbies?" These are simple questions that a friend should have knowledge of. We ask users to choose carefully when categorizing friend/follower requests because there is such a vast difference in the amount of information a friend can obtain versus a follower. An affiliate can always delete someone as a friend or follower if they feel the need to do so.
All BeatzBurne profiles are initially private. Users who are not followers or friends can only see another member's top five favorite bands and latest three songs they have posted. From there users can decide whether or not they find another member's taste intriguing or not. To secure personal information from being shared too freely, BeatzBurne recommends that users have a profile picture of their favorite artist instead of a personal image. Members also have the ability to block or report other users if they feel threatened for any reason. BeatzBurne asks users to provide the website with their current address, that way BeatzBurne can suggest local concerts or shows the member might be interested in, however it is not a requirement and affiliates to not need to give this information. The same privacy options are available for bands as well. If bands do not want to allow fans to message, video chat, or blog with the group, they can block this option in their settings.
An advantageous feature to BeatzBurne is the ability to create a public or private blog. If a member does choose to make a public blog BeatzBurne asks users to blog tastefully. If users decide to create a private blog, they invite other members to view the post and anyone who was not invited cannot observe the writings. Bands and music lovers alike also have the choice to allow comments to be posted on their private or public blogs. This ensures that blogs are being written are examined by an audience that the author feels comfortable. Authors of blogs can also tag different users in the writings to notify other members about what they are blogging. Authors can only tag friends in their writings and only the writer of the blog can view who has been tagged in the post. Other users cannot sees who has been tagged.
 The privacy settings on BeatzBurne are completely customizable which allows our affiliates to decide for themselves what information is shared online and who can view this information. All of these settings available on BeatzBurne allows users to have a personalized profile that is safely shared and completely customizable.