This week in class we have been focusing on many of the security issues associated with Facebook and MySpace. We had multiple readings for Wednesday’s class from danah boyd that backed up this whole discussion. While I am not going to specifically focus on the readings from this week I am going to try to apply Facebook and security issues to my real life. We had some great conversation in class about how many of the security features have been found to have flaws and largely misunderstood by many of the users. There are such things as limited profiles, being able to see profiles of people that poke you (even without having to be friends with them, and more specific to my case are the pictures and wall posts that we have out there. Strange thing is I had a presentation in my S433 (Security) class after our lecture about just this issue, security in Facebook. It backed up many of the issues we had discussed in class as well as introduced many of the other security flaws and features we did not discuss. Needless to say I have a better understanding of this entire area now.
My main focus of this blog is how important it is to ensure that you have the proper setting on your Facebook to allow your friends to see material that is personal as opposed to that material that you would not want your parents or more importantly employers.
I am graduating here in two weeks and have been faced with a situation such as this, where I do not want future employers to see what my Facebook account entails. My first experience was when I found one of the partners of the CPA firm where I am going to work actually had an account of Facebook. I thought it would be cool to friend him on Facebook since he was one of the partners I enjoyed working with during my internship. I then got online to talk to another friend and the conversation turned into discussing, Facebook, very similar to Wednesdays class. Needless to say I had plenty of pictures of myself drunk as a skunk, doing things that older generations would not approve of and a plethora of wall posts where there was less than appealing language. I basically freaked out and went through my settings, pictures, wall posts and about me area and cleaned it up to make myself look professional. When I first became friends with the partner I did not even think anything about it, because my pictures did not involve me doing anything illegal, they just might have been looked down upon. It really hit home that I am going to be a professional and my profile cannot look like this. Since this time in February I have been keeping my profile free of pictures where I look like I am beyond drunk, and making sure that wall posts that contain foul language are deleted. This just goes to show a real life example where having a facebook profile that contains some of this stuff, could turn around a bit you in the ass.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
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2 comments:
Good post. I like how you didn't explain much about Facebook, considering we are each all to familiar with the social-networking site. I really like your example, which fits perfectly into our discussions. You took a nice approach to things when you realized that you are going to be a professional, and you need to appear as one from a profile stand point.
I think it is really funny how so many underclassmen--and high schoolers for that matter--allow all kinds of inappropriate/embarassing photos to stay on their profile. Personally I think that employer Facebook checking is overhyped (although I am only a sophomore and havent been in that situation, to my knowledge). Nevertheless, I think people don't come to the realization that you do, and think it is more important to show their friends that they are a great partier and have an awesome social life. Keep thinking that...
I thought your example was really relevant to our class discussions as well. It is good that you are responsible enough to not put up pictures or wall posts that would give an employer a bad impression of you. Once someone forms a first impression of you, that first impression sticks in their head. You never get the opportunity again to make a good first impression. If an employer saw pictures of you drunk, passed out with writing all over you, they would have formed a terrible first impression of you. They would probably not hire you for the job. They would think you are irresponsible, that you party too much, that you won’t be able to take the job seriously, and that you can’t hold your liquor. I think it is good that you changed your Facebook so you won’t be looked down upon by employers and employees. People who are looking for internships and jobs, and who don’t change their Facebooks are crazy. I don’t get why they would rather have pictures of themselves partying with friends, risking a potential job opportunity, than just change their Facebook. In one article I found on the Boston Globe, someone came up with a solution to avoid this problem. This solution is to create two Facebook accounts, one for socializing purposes and one for professional purposes. This is a good idea for people who feel it is necessary to keep up pictures of themselves and friends partying on Facebook, but who want to still look professional to employers and employees.
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