R.I.P. Privacy?

I am a "member"of the wildly popular social networking site Facebook, and certainly the issue of privacy has entered my brain on numerous occasions. As an educator, I need to be cautious about what is posted of me and what I post and WHO can see it. I have all my privacy settings set so that only friends can see what I post. But still I wonder, does that really make me feel safe? Could someone still hack into my Facebook account and see what I have posted. I guess anything is potentially "hackable", isn't it? So, how careful are you when you post things online?
Husna Najand writes about this very issue in an article published in February of this year. He states,"In the age of Facebook where our private lives are flaunted in a public arena on a daily basis our typical notion of privacy has become outdated." Have you ever asked yourself why you are posting what you are posting? What is its purpose? What are the ramifications of this? These are questions that need to be at the forefront of our minds before we say "adieu" to digital photographs, videos, and potentially, our privacy as it gets sent off into never neverland! It's scary what can happen when we "release" images of ourselves. It's like a domino effect. Once it's "out there", anyone can modify it...in a multitude of ways...good or bad. I know of a case back home in Canada where a teacher had a picture of herself modified in a very inappropriate way and then re-released to the public. All it took was a few clicks of the mouse, some program like PhotoShop, and voila! Reputations can be severely tarnished if one is not cautious.

Here is a youtube video of the show 60 Minutes talking about the brain behind Facebook, its founder, a 20-something year old Harvard drop-out, Mark Zuckerburg, (who is reportedly worth 3 billion dollars!). It's quite interesting and worth a look. Closer to the end of the video, the show talks about the privacy on Facebook and the recent controversial changes to its terms of service.



Here is a humorous look at Facebook from a 'real-world' stance.



So, what can we make of all this?
#1. Read the fine print. Stay vigilant about the "terms of use" in whatever program you use online.
#2. Don't post online what you wouldn't want your grandmother to see.
#3. Ask yourself, "Will posting this hinder my career or job search in any way?"
#4. Don't overestimate privacy of online information