2008 Woodie Awards
Show care when posting online
STAFF EDITORIAL
Issue date: 3/3/08 Section: Opinion
THE RECENT JAGUAR Production-hosted event "Campus Computing and the Law" brought to light a lot of good information about online privacy - or more accurately, lack of it - and the potential risks associated with certain kinds of popular online activity.
Much of what was discussed should be common sense to the average college student. Unfortunately, college students across the world tend to be lacking in the common sense category.
Probably the most important and relevant discussion was the discussion concerning online activity on popular social-networking sites, such as MySpace and Facebook.
Students need to understand what they post on these sites is viewable - often by people they do not want to see their page and sometimes by people they never expect to view their page. This includes that girl or boy you are trying to court, or better yet, the parents of that girl or boy. It could also include professors, colleagues, grad school admissions officers, and potential employers.
It is one thing when Facebook or MySpace helps your girlfriend/boyfriend's parents see through your good-boy/good-girl façade. It is a whole another thing when a potential employer does not hire you because they easily discovered your "true self" online.
Yes, those random pictures of you drinking and partying - even if you are of age - and those random blog post talking about this-and-that can and will come back and haunt you.
Before a potential employer invests their resources and time into an employee, especially an employee trying to get hired for one of those plush, high-paying jobs, they are within every right to try to gather as much information about the potential employee. And you better believe that they will search out this information.
"What about privacy?" a concerned applicant may ask. What privacy? Facebook, MySpace and the such are public social-networking sites. People do not join them because they do not want their information to be seen. People join these sites to share their information.
Anytime someone posts something on the Internet, it is analogous to posting the information on a huge billboard for the world to see.
The quick and easy rule when it comes to posting information or pictures on the Internet is do not do it unless it is something you would not mind your mother or a potential employer seeing.
Much of what was discussed should be common sense to the average college student. Unfortunately, college students across the world tend to be lacking in the common sense category.
Probably the most important and relevant discussion was the discussion concerning online activity on popular social-networking sites, such as MySpace and Facebook.
Students need to understand what they post on these sites is viewable - often by people they do not want to see their page and sometimes by people they never expect to view their page. This includes that girl or boy you are trying to court, or better yet, the parents of that girl or boy. It could also include professors, colleagues, grad school admissions officers, and potential employers.
It is one thing when Facebook or MySpace helps your girlfriend/boyfriend's parents see through your good-boy/good-girl façade. It is a whole another thing when a potential employer does not hire you because they easily discovered your "true self" online.
Yes, those random pictures of you drinking and partying - even if you are of age - and those random blog post talking about this-and-that can and will come back and haunt you.
Before a potential employer invests their resources and time into an employee, especially an employee trying to get hired for one of those plush, high-paying jobs, they are within every right to try to gather as much information about the potential employee. And you better believe that they will search out this information.
"What about privacy?" a concerned applicant may ask. What privacy? Facebook, MySpace and the such are public social-networking sites. People do not join them because they do not want their information to be seen. People join these sites to share their information.
Anytime someone posts something on the Internet, it is analogous to posting the information on a huge billboard for the world to see.
The quick and easy rule when it comes to posting information or pictures on the Internet is do not do it unless it is something you would not mind your mother or a potential employer seeing.
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