Social Networking Exposes Private Life Details by Cathlyn Driscoll
The upsides of social networking can be found everywhere- rekindled friendships, contact with your old high school or college buddies, and increased sales of your product or service, or staying close to your fan base. But there is also a ‘dark side’ to social networking that I believe has affected all who participate at least once.
I’m talking about the ‘accidental’ private post that...somehow got out in public.
A friend of mine posted something interesting to me on Twitter the other day, concerning Apple computers, which I have a passion for. I ‘direct messaged’ him on Twitter like so many times before, and he answered with some basic info. Then I tabbed over to my Facebook account, and I was surprised to find our ‘direct message’ (i.e. private) conversation in my Facebook stream. But I figured not a huge deal, right? Maybe only I could see it...but then again, my Facebook is open to the public...hmmmm...I figured he had set it up with one of those multiple messaging accounts where all his Twitters also get posted to Facebook and several other social networking sites. But then, some other friend of HIS joined our conversation online in Facebook! So, that meant, his private ‘Direct messages’ to me were posted on his Wall of his Facebook page! The person was sad to learn she’d missed an event.
Makes you wonder about all the other so called ‘private’ direct messages he’d sent to others, eh? Did he make fun of someone? Did he get angry with a client? Did he reveal something personal? Has he LOST business or a friend due to something ‘accidently’ being posted to other social networks, he thought were PRIVATE? How many private conversations have you had in your own life that if read out loud by strangers, would make no sense to anyone, or make you sound like a fool, but you were only kidding around with a close friend?
A celebrity that I follow on Twitter recently revealed to the world that they had a minor cancer and how he was dealing with it. I was surprised by the post myself. A day later, he came back on apologizing, saying he thought he was sending a private message to a friend. OMG! Did he miss out on a movie or TV deal because now everyone knows his ‘unhealthy’ status??? His public relations agent must have loved him that day!
My own error was just as embarrassing, revealing a family members’ private diagnosis to the world on Facebook. I was fortunate to catch the error quickly and delete it. But with so many places to post, maybe we don’t all have time to check on them after we’ve ‘chatted’ it up.
Yes, it definitely is a huge time commitment to post everywhere individually, rather than doing a one time post and sending it out to a gizillion places at once...so, you either have to: Ensure and TEST your Tweets, Blogging, Comments, and social networks carefully and know EXACTLY how it works, or you need to pull back and limit the amount of ‘socializing’ you do OR, you need to make sure you don’t say ANYTHING online that you wouldn’t want your mother to hear.
But this is not just about being careful when you post. It’s being careful when you post all the time! Because, even though I wasn’t the one making the error, you never know if the person you are chatting it up with has HIS or HER account set up to broadcast your dialog to the world! So again, do not say anything online you wouldn’t want repeated to your mother, father, spouse, or children. Let’s get smart people.
