Much ado has been made recently about Facebook and its privacy settings. Many people think that the settings are confusing, complicated and not “private” enough. Quite a few people threatened to leave Facebook if things didn’t change. So, Facebook responded and is rolling out new privacy settings.
Will this make your information more private? Maybe. Maybe not.
My rule of thumb is that no matter what your privacy settings are, do NOT post anything that you don’t want the world to see! Even if you are posting for your “friends” only, they could still share your information.
A friend in human resources told me a story about someone who was very unhappy with his job and posted about it on Facebook. The person made the mistake of posting that he hated his job so much that he deliberately sabotaged a project and was proud of the fact that his boss wasn’t smart enough to figure it out. Of course, one of his “friends” was also a co-worker…who printed the post and took it to their boss. The person didn’t have to worry about not liking his job, as he no longer had one.
A business associate of mine went to Las Vegas for a bachelorette party and she posted a couple of pictures on her Facebook page. It was clear that everyone had a very good time…in fact, too good a time. I contacted her and suggested that she remove the pictures and she told me she was only posting them “for a day or so.” I told her about a feature on Windows—one only has to right click on any picture and it can be saved, printed or even e-mailed…all without the poster’s permission or knowledge.
We’ve all seen posts that shouldn’t have been shared, whether on Facebook, Twitter or any of the other social networking sites. Even LinkedIn, once the premiere professional social networking site, is no longer immune, primarily due to the fact that users have the ability to have their Twitter posts as a LinkedIn status update. Do we really need updates about TV shows, sports or lunch on LinkedIn?
It’s simple: think before posting. I follow what I call the “grandmother rule” —if my grandmother would say: “What on earth did you just post?”, then I probably shouldn’t have posted it. Hopefully, I thought about it before actually posting!
Like always, great advice. I also know of a bank executive that was fired due to his “red-toned” jokes being posted on his FB page. Unfortunately, he was posting these jokes during working hours. His employer was able to track his Internet use; specifically Facebook, during working hours. Keep in mind of what you post as well as when you are posting it. Do yourself a favor and don’t do it during working hours.
Brilliant, thanks, I will subscribe to you RSS later!
Great! I hope you find my posts valuable.