Are you a Facebook user? Â Do you like posting photos and status updates? Â Do you enjoy posting on people’s walls and having them post on your wall?
One of the main issues that I have with Facebook is the illusion. Â You log in and you are presented with your news feed. Â Over on the left you see the smiling faces of your friends that are online, and your feed is full of them telling you about random stuff. Â And see all this friend-centered stuff and you think, “Hey, I’ve got something to say, let me update my status and share it with my friends…” Â Who can really see that? Â If you’ve gone into your privacy settings then it might just be your friends. Â More likely, it’s your “Friends of Friends” or even “Everyone”.
You might have heard that horror story about someone who bitched about their boss and the boss saw it and it got them in trouble, so you haven’t friended your boss. Â However, you are unaware that your boss actually went to high school with someone who is your friend. Â You’ve got your status updates set to “Friends of Friends” which means your boss, who is a friend of your friend, can see that you just called him a twat, so maybe you don’t get that raise or promotion.
That photo you posted of your girlfriend meeting you at the door when you got home, naked with a beer and a steak… sure, the plate covered all the naughty bits, but you just posted that to your Mobile Photos album (since you uploaded it from your phone) and that album is marked visible by Everyone! Â That’s on the Internet now. Â Tagged and cached, for-ev-ver. Â The next time your girlfriend goes looking for a job, someone just might Google her name, see that photo and decide her future based on it. Â Maybe she doesn’t get the job… or maybe she does and her new boss treats her like a girl willing to have half-naked photos of her posted on the Internet… or maybe it doesn’t matter…
I prefer to err on the side of thinking that it matters…
A caution about privacy and the Internet might seem odd coming from a guy who blogs and mentions his real life now and then, but know that every tidbit of information I put into a blog post is carefully considered. Â I ask myself, “Do I mind if everyone knows this?” Â I have over 1,100 posts here and I’ve probably put just as many in the trash bin. Â It’s actually common for me to come here, write out a diatribe on the latest frustration at work or amongst friends, let it sit in draft form for a couple of days and then delete it. Â It’s one of the reasons I love blogging and haven’t been a huge fan of most social networks, like Facebook and Twitter, because they are immediate, there is less chance for careful consideration.
So, my Monday morning bit of advice this week is to go to your privacy settings in Facebook and make sure all your sharing is at levels you are comfortable with. Â At the very least, be aware of who can see what you say…