Since the launch of the internet as we know it in the 1990’s I have been an advocate, user, supporter and junkie. I have for example, been on the professional network known as Linkedin, since 2003. My profile number is in the 60,000 mark of what is now more than 100 million users around the world. When I first joined, few professionals knew what it was. I just thought it was a great tool.
I was hard pressed to join the Facebook movement. Everyone I knew was on Facebook, including my retired parents, and my children, and still I resisted until about two years ago. Since, I have used the model for both personal social tools and as well professional marketing campaigns.
I have toyed with Myspace, had Yahoo and AOL, and worked with MSN Messenger. I have posted pictures, launched and maintained blogs and written for online publications. I have created an entire world around the digital age and media strategies of today, and raised my children in the age of digital tech and socializing. Each child, respectively has on average 1000 friends in the Facebook. I have also championed for appropriate posting and I have disciplined and yelled myself mute for the slightest infraction by a child for inappropriate use of language or suggestive photographs or visiting inappropriate websites. I have been the biggest advocate for safety in internet use as it applies to myself, my family and my children. I understood early on that online activity could never really be “erased” and in fact information posted is public domain. Thus, employers, recruiters, investigators, schools, and anyone else interested could easily seek out information and gather it through internet portals. I preached to the children in recent years, about the importance of responsible internet/social media use, because I feared for their safety.
As recently as a few weeks ago our daughter asked us about traveling and studying abroad. Our response, gauged by the incarceration of Amanda Knox, an American College student currently serving 26 years in an Italian prison for the murder of her room mate, was when she (our daughter) could show us consistent responsible social media use, including language and photographs, we would consider allowing her to go. Amanda Knox’s Myspace account was a contributing factor in the evidence against her to convict her. Our daughter didn’t appreciate the mandate and the topic was dropped.
Internet security, and our privacy should be at the forefront of our minds, whenever we post. I am careful about bank account access, what bills I pay online or what I buy and from whom. I value my privacy and my security and I post responsibly. I thought I was covering all of my bases. I go so far as to privatize my relationships and network on my professional profile to further protect the privacy of those relationships. But it is still a nieve world in which I live, I just discovered.
The leading news story this week surrounds the whisper campaign launched by Facebook in effort to adversely affect the social media strategy launch of Google’s Social Circles. As the story unfolds it would seem that Facebook, desperate to hold on to the monopoly of social media market share and in fear of the rising powerhouse of Google, launched a secret operation in which a well known PR company would strategically negate the value and security of the new Google application. Facebook contends that Google is using the Facebook data base to gather information on its users, to build out the social circles of its users. Facebook contends further that Google is in violation of privacy acts enforced by the FCC.
So, considering the invasion of privacy matter and my concerns for privacy, and understanding that I primarily engage with my gmail account, I did some research and was astounded by the information I could gather about my social circle and the second degree of separation that exists between myself and any given relationship with whom I have exchanged email, chatted, or Face Booked with. I was astounded. The results were in the hundreds and the analytics indicated that the reach was GLOBAL with at least a dozen profiles in Asia, another dozen in the middle east and many in Europe. My jaw dropped when I realized exactly HOW very transparent my internet activity is, and the idea that “BIG BROTHER” in any given country at any given time could find me and garner a complete outline of everywhere I have been in cyberspace and my real time activity as well.
Consider this, with GPS maps installed on your IPAD, BLACKBERRY or smartphone, the increase in mobile apps and marketing strategies venturing down the mobile path, everywhere you go, everything you do, what you consume, how much you spend, who you are with, and even when you excused yourself to the restroom is recorded somewhere, and available to anyone holding the right software program to access the information.
Corruption is on every fathomable level of humanity, Protection of self, privacy and all we hold dear is the only power of defense we have against those on the outside seeking out information. Posting your whereabouts on a Face book wall, while your information is readily available and includes addresses and phone numbers, is an embossed invitation to invasion of home in your absence. Posting images of your children, your activities, checking in to “places”, and creating profiles of your activity makes you subject to and at the mercy of criminal activity beyond your wildest imagination.
When you post, research and engage in online activity, no matter how encrypted and safe you think you might be, think again. Think 3 times. There is no privacy on the world wide web. Anything you say can and will be used against you and can and will be misconstrued and can and will forever impact your life, and challenge your safety.
Standing Up Strong, isn’t just about parenting challenging children, or circumstances in family life. It is about taking a stand on the issues that matter and speaking out on what might not have been considered. Standing up is about voicing your values and I stand up strong for privacy and above all, personal safety.
POST RESPONSIBLY. ALWAYS CONSIDER SOMEONE SOMEWHERE IS WATCHING AND READING.
Standing Up Strong 