Tips For Protecting Your Online Presence

This was an assignment post.

Social media, blogs, and their effects are interesting.  We've gone from writing in little journals with little locks on them and telling things to a few friends - from keeping our information private and selective - to posting our thoughts with more visibility, permanence, and potential for notoriety than if we were to stand in Central Park half-naked with a loud speaker and shout out our business for everyone to hear.

Because there are no faces staring back at us to react, we feel protected. We feel anonymous. We feel safe.

We're delusional.

While blogs are quite simply visible to everyone, social media sites are a bit trickier to wrap the mind around.

In a nutshell, it's like this: Everything you post online can be accessed by anyone. Forever.  You have privacy settings? They can be overridden.  You delete the photos or posts? They've been cached. All "your" data can be hacked or stolen if it is online and someone wants it.(2)

Here are some concrete examples to give you a better feel for what I mean...

Do you remember when facebook allowed you to set the privacy settings of your display picture?  That's long gone, now. It was wiped out in an update along with a plethora of "improvements" that they said would allow you to further control your privacy settings ... with the exception of your display picture. (3)

They changed it. Dumped it. Just like that. Your privacy is a courtesy they extend. It protects you about as well as those old diary locks could. You get a sense of security and the truly hopeless are deterred, but if someone comes along and wants your info, they will get it if it's there.

So what can you do to help yourself? Don't make it easy for them.  Posting "John Doe is in Italy!" is equivalent to posting "John Doe's house is empty!"  Combine that with an unknowingly geotagged picture from your home or a landline phone number and you may as well hand the crook your valuables on a silver platter.

Also, don't bother trying to hide behind "free speech."  Calling your boss a jerk at work will get you fired. Why should blogging or facebooking about his being a jerk be any safer?

PWT - posts without thought - can get you embarrassed at least (4), and stalked, fired, or divorced at worst.(1)

Getting the idea?

It isn't exactly complicated logic - just common sense and civility that's been muddled by the new common behaviour.

Ask yourself:
Would you want your boss to hear it?
How about your grandmother?
Your spouse?
A nosy neighbour?
Would you want your kids to hear it?
Would you say it comfortably to a stranger?

If the answer to any of these is "no" then maybe you shouldn't post it!

It's not that hard.


References
1- http://blog.jeroenhoekman.com/facebook_could_get_you_fired_or_divorced.htm (2012)
(Note: some links contain coarse language.)

2- http://www.snopes.com/computer/internet/facebook.asp (2012)
(Note that while the third-party applications are stated as violating terms of service and the actions as inappropriate, it glosses over the fact that the photo theft nonetheless happened.)

3- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Facebook#Upgrades (2012) (Section: Upgrades, Nov/Dec 2009)

4- Everyone has seen that pic that should never have been posted and makes everyone cringe. Do I really need to provide a link, here?

Introduction

Observe! An introductory post! From me, Schuyler.  My name is not, in fact, Schuyler. This is a pseudonym. A nom de plume. An alias.  Like George Sand, or Lewis Carroll, or, say, Whoopi Goldberg. I have a different name that is used in legal matters and in every day life out in the non-virtual world.  That name is not for here, though.  Why? Because I'm shy, pseudonyms are fun, and I just don't wanna use my real one!

Smart-assery aside, this blog did have its origins as a school project. That's why I picked "Schuyler" - it essentially means "scholar" or "student." Well, that course is long over, I passed, and now I'm re-purposing this as my personal, general use blog. Here, I can share my attempts at DIYs, miscellaneous kitchen experiments, and other lessons I encounter on my way, so I think Schuyler still fits. I love learning.

Hi.

P.S.: Am I the only one who is amused by the blog spell-check highlighting "blog" as a typo?