Busted Big Time: Facebook's Late Adopters Turn the Tables

Be real: no matter how sure you are that you’re getting away with murder (metaphorically speaking, that is), there’s really no need to post pictures of it up on Facebook. Especially if you don’t want certain people eyeing your misadventures. It’s the social networking equivalent of filming a private sex video and then being surprised it popped up online somewhere.

Sears, all the latest controversy bubbling up in the blog circuit over the evident lack of privacy on Facebook has totally missed the boat. If you don’t want someone checking out your every personal detail, don’t make a point of posting it on Facebook. Or My Space. Or anywhere else on the Net, for that matter.

Because no matter which way you slice it, it will end up being your fault, and you'll be kicking yourself to the grave. Take note: if you upload something you don’t want others to see, it will come back and bite you in the you-know-what, guaranteed.

The reason for this rant is that I am all sorts of embarrassed for one Kevin Colvin, bank intern by day, wand-toting party fairy by night. It turns out this Facebook “early adopter” (ha!) didn’t go to work for a couple of days, claiming he had a pressing family issue. Ok dude, do what you have to do, hope everything works out.

But then... oops! A coworker jacked some pictures this guy posted on Facebook during the days he was away from work that clearly show him NOT attending to a family situation. His boss got a hold of one of these not-so-flattering photographs (with the dude partying it up in a fairy costume), and responded by attaching the photo to an email reply and bcc’ing the entire company. Uh-huh, that's right.

Harsh. And a tad extreme. Anyway, online ridicule ensued, as the e-mail thread landed in the inboxes of friends and colleagues throughout the land. And of course, blogs are eating this one up. Go ahead and check out the cringe-worthy e-mail exchange here. I'm still reeling.

So my whole point is, if you are going pull one over The Man, at least make sure to cover your tracks. Geez. I’m sure all of us have done something similar at one point or another in our careers. But we have the decency and brains to be smart about it. Right?

I’d actually be laughing at this if it wasn’t so painfully embarrassing. I mean, check out the picture! Some one put him out of his misery please, for my sake.

As one commenter noted on Valleywag (the blog that broke the story): “Okay, that’s one way of letting the entire office know you’re gay…” LOL. And all of online for that matter. I wonder if this kid has what it takes to become the next Chris Crocker. Thoughts?

If Digital Doppelgangers Turn

I was watching The Island last night trying to keep myself awake and wondering if I would ever own a clone of my very own. I, unlike others, wouldn’t be riddled with guilt for bringing a doppelganger to life as a medical just-in-case. Then it struck me though: I have clones online haunting the trackless waste of cyberspace—What if they all fuse together into an uberforce of artificial dark cunning and turn on me? After all, I’ve dabbled in personal avatar creation on many an occasion, more so than most I think; and then there's the looming threat that at some point technology might pull a Matrix on us.

Check this out: I have a Second Life, an IMVU avatar, and a Digg profile, plus active profiles in Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Friendster, Hi5, and aSmallWorld. I'm also a Wikipedia contributor. I’ve spread my online persona so thick that sometimes I feel I’m more real online than off. Is the Internet undercutting my true self? After reading fellow blogger and friend Ryan’s post on her experiences with MyCybertwin.com, I was immediately enthralled by the idea of having a fake me taking care of my most quotidian conversations. I immediately created my own CyberTwin and let him loose on my friends. Although the conversations were totes retarded, it was fun having a virtual Juan chatting away with my online contacts. It was evident it was a fake. But is this a foreboding of something creepier on the horizon?

What’s your take on this? Can digital doppelgangers gain precedence over the real you, to the point where you yourself become irrelevant? If so, can the weather ever lift, or is this exponential? How much can I nurture my own online persona before it Frankensteins into an unstoppable force that feeds on itself? Am I being a paranoid alarmist?

Beware Online Observers: Social Spam Attacks!

Heads-up, network-savvy social Internets, you or someone you know could be next! It seems no one is truly safe from cyber-attacks and pervy porn pollution. Check it: Today, suddenly and without warning, my cousin was the unlucky victim of a growing form of pseudo-identity theft. Someone or something hacked into her personal hi5 profile and sent out a spam blast that littered the hi5 walls of all her contacts with sexually charged quick-hello messages. Here’s the faux compliment I was creatively conferred with:

Hi Juan, I was just looking through my friends, you are hot!!! I would love to hang otu sometime. You can check my real profiel here. www.tinyprofiles.info/sweetthing88

Now, I’m assuming whoever authored this completely unimaginative solicitation was aiming for digital vérité by including obviously-on-purpose typos, but to me, it made the whole thing more annoying. Clearly an impostor.

Not to mention that my cousin would never say something half as retarded as that. If she really wanted to lay it on me by telling me how hot she finds me, she would do so in a sophisticated, tongue-in-cheek kinda way. And I’m actually supposed to believe that she has another profile in some random-ass website--her real one, no less--and that she took the time to craft a fake, less exciting profile on hi5 to save face with all her friends? Give me a break!

Anyway, the situation was actually totes hilarious, as was the unending torrent of pings, e-mails, and puzzled private messages that rained on my cousin after the cyber-spam attack. She was mortified at first, but then simply let it go after sending an assertive e-mail to the hi5 webmasters expressing her outrage.

I know hi5 is the poor man’s Facebook, but none of us, no matter what social network we choose to partake in, should be subjected to this kind of outrageous digital distress. Today, it was my cousin on hi5. Tomorrow, who knows? Are any of us safe?