Privacy and Social Media

I am leery of all social media. I do not need or want everyone knowing every aspect of my life. Also, as a secondary teacher, I try to keep my life as private as possible and away from my students. The use of Facebook would provide too much information to the masses. I currently do not have a Facebook account and it drives me crazy that certain businesses only put stuff on Facebook. No account no access to the information. Once upon a time I did have an account. I know this is going to sound bad, but I used a fake name and was only friends with my family. If anyone found they account they would certainly have thought it fake, as I had 7 friends and no posts. One of my sisters posted a picture of and tagged me with my “alias” and a friend from undergrad found me, I now had 8 friends. I am pretty sure I had every privacy lock down possible. Again, I did not want others to find me. Then I watched the documentary on Facebook and thought I should delete my account. I tried to login, but my account was gone, did I do that? Well come to find out, my account had been hacked and the content changed. My undergrad friend was the one that let me know. How long had it been compromised, who knows? How was this brought to the attention of FB, I do not know.

I am of the belief, that if you sign up for FB or any of the other platforms, including professional platforms, you have in a way signed away your right to privacy. No matter how much you lock down your account with the various settings, someone out there is trying to get in and expose you. With that said, one should always be careful with what they post, as once it is out there you can not recall it. As a teacher I try to tell my students this repeatedly, because there are consequences to their posts. Just like old yearbook posts are coming back to haunt people today, social media posts will be around for perpetuity.