Network nitwits

NET RESULTS:Whatever you post on Facebook is fair game for an inquiring prospective employer or admissions tutor

What is it about the "public" aspect of public profiles on social networking sites that people just don't get?

For some reason, a lot of people seem to think that because they've posted something on the internet, it constitutes a private exchange, disregarding that posting anywhere constitutes publication, in permanent form, in a public place.

This has caused some notable issues for bloggers, some of whom have been shocked (shocked!) to find they were fired for making negative posts about their employers to their blogs, there to be read by the world. And the boss, of course.

In some cases in the US, where such a right has constitutional protection, there have definitely been free speech issues around such firings, but in most situations you wonder how stupid people are if they think that their small circle are the only ones that read a mass medium like the internet?

This is a growing problem with social networking sites. People willingly reveal a worrying amount of personal information in their profiles.

That's why I had to laugh at the hoo-hah in England over the Cambridge admissions tutor who revealed this week in the college magazine that he had joined Facebook and reads profiles of students applying for admission to that university.

"This has been the year in which I joined Facebook," he wrote. "I have to confess that I actually joined to see what I was missing and also to check up (discreetly) on applicants for a college position. I had been alerted to the value of this by some of our members in the City."

The head of the students union in Cambridge told the Guardian: "I would be quite concerned if it was college policy to check up on applicants through Facebook."

Give me a break. Half the world checks up on everybody through their profiles on such sites (either before or after googling them as well). Why shouldn't the stuff people post about themselves on their profiles be as readable as, say, a local newspaper article?

And why should a university not use an approach that will certainly be used by employers only a few years later?

Students, here's a true (and for many, a bitter) lesson in life. Social networking sites are not all about you and do not exist in splendid isolation. There are millions of people on Facebook; it isn't a remote little community for posting details you do not want the world to consider in an evaluation of you now and long into the future.

In the real world, people use free and totally public sources of information to learn more about prospective flatmates, dates or job candidates.

This has very serious implications, of course. Many using such sites are young and naive and do not realise the implications of the Google page cache (indications being that it will be as permanent as Newgrange). Nor do most users read the small print to realise what they have signed up for. According to the Guardian, when you sign up in Facebook:

1) you agree to receive any advertising the site wants to send you based on all the information in your profile. People may recall one attempt to let third parties advertise to members based on this information backfired big time and Facebook had to back down. Yet six weeks later, the company was quietly testing a system that places links to its mobile software on to smart-phones on the T-Mobile USA network without the permission of the devices' owners;

2) you can't delete anything (they hold a backup of prior versions of your profile);

3) your information can be viewed by unauthorised people (you acknowledge that you accept that they cannot guarantee who views your profile, that privacy and safety measures may fail);

4) they may, like that Cambridge tutor, search for other sources of information on you on the web ("Facebook may collect information about you from other sources, such as newspapers, blogs, instant messaging services and other users of the Facebook service... in order to provide you with more useful information and a more personalised service");

5) The CIA may look at your personal information (as your data is processed in the US, they say they reserve the right to hand it over if asked to by law enforcement or government agencies, and that they reserve the right to view it themselves if they suspect fraud, to protect their interests or property, etc).

Are you so sure you want to have those social networking profiles after all?

blog: www.techno-culture.com