Posts Tagged ‘Social media’
- In: Advice | Facebook | Social Media
- 1 Comment
A number of stories in The Telegraph this morning support the title’s sentiment. Facebook is now worth £1 billion to the UK economy and YouTube now receives 60 hours of uploads per minute. So yes, social media is here to stay. So what does this mean to you, me and the companies that choose to operate within the social landscape?
To keep it short and simple (KISS): Behave yourself. Be aware. Be educated. Be safe(r).
The more reliant we become on the communicative prowess of social networks, we must comprehend the restrictions they behold offline. For instance, a true ‘Facebook friend’ will not be there to offer a shoulder to cry on when your boyfriend dumps you. A true ‘friend’ will be. When you need a lift to the airport because Southern Rail are so terribly shocking to get you there on time your true ‘friend’ will be there, whilst your Facebook friend is busy poking you. This is just one side of the spur-like social media sword.
The crux of fix I believe is to get a far tighter grasp on managing our identity online. Not identities, not our aliases. Not even our ‘online identity’ but our identity. As much as I hate the thought of it, a day will come when using an alias online will be as uncouth as pissing on your MD in front of a client. With SOPA (for now) going quiet, you can see what the authorities are looking to do so be careful now.
So if you want to maintain an all-free-all-open Facebook profile that is completely downloadable by a hacker in a world of increasing digital identity theft, you only have yourself to blame. Or if you are grilled in a future job interview over a rather seedy image of you and that girl you can’t remember from that trip to that island you can’t recall, you should have taken the 60 seconds it takes to secure your Facebook account. There are alternative solutions here of course but this isn’t the time or the place 
Some things should never be done and some things should never be caught on camera. Sadly the growth of mobile phones and point-and-shoot camera’s have grown far quicker than our ability to compromise what is being uploaded online. People are being burnt. Businesses are being burnt. Don’t follow
I haven’t necessarily given any examples on how to be safer online and I haven’t once thought obliged to. I have found this post one of the easiest to write for a long time because it is something I feel so passionately about and a concern I see exampled several times a day (even by my friends!) If you don’t know how to secure your Facebook profile doesn’t this show a lack of communication on Facebook’s part? Oh the irony…
Happy and safe browsing people! x
