Is Social Media Safe?
This is a question I was recently pondering when I saw that one of my friends had posted her wedding pictures on her Facebook account….ALL OF THEM. Granted, I also have some personal pictures on my Facebook account, but I feel slightly better about it because I’ve changed the settings so that only my “friends” can see them. There are also other safety and privacy settings that can be altered as an extra step against an unwanted onlooker peering into your account. But is it really safe?
A few days ago, one of my good friends sent me a message on Facebook. I figured that it had been a while since I had spoken with her, so I thought that maybe she was just “catching up”. Not thinking much else, I opened the message only to realize that it was some sort of virus/spam-related thing. I quickly sent her a message and emailed the folks at FB to let them know what had happened. It turns out that someone had hacked into her account and was sending spam messages to everyone.
I shuddered.
Just how much information was this hacker privy to? I mean, my friend had her personal cell phone number on there, email account information, home address and a whole slew of other personal information. But FB isn’t the only culprit in the concern over the safety in social media. Twitter is another Web 2.0-based technology that has (and still currently) continues to influence the ever-changing shift in Internet culture. Again, though; who is to blame when someone reveals just a little too much information about themselves on the web? Have you ever thought about how incredibly easy it would be to get to know a person simply by being a “follower” or because someone forgot to make their account “private:
Who 
October 20 2009 02:00 am | Social Media
