Facebook Ethics

[John Picard]

I shiver thinking what people put on their facebook page: drunken pictures, job-related rants, personal addresses, etc. It's a disaster waiting to happen.

I too am amazed at what some people are willing to have floating around. I keep my profile 'potential employer proof.'

When the 'younger generation' starts running for congress and other political offices, you can bet we'll be seeing crap dredged up from facebook.

I've got you beat. No Facebook, No MySpace -- I do not 'lol' with my 'bff'.

 

[SeerSGB]

I shiver thinking what people put on their facebook page: drunken pictures, job-related rants, personal addresses, etc. It's a disaster waiting to happen.

I too am amazed at what some people are willing to have floating around. I keep my profile 'potential employer proof.'

Yes, this. Especially this.

I'm very aware of it also because in my line of business there are actually very few people, and almost everybody knows everybody else. So you must be very careful about what you say to whom. Today's cool coworker can be the guy that hires you tomorrow.

I am constantly amazed that people don't get this.

More and more I hear stories from cousins or old business acquaintances about how they had some job or some bid locked up then the HR manager/company went online and Googled or Facebooked them and saw their pictures of the last time they where in Cancun partying or the photos of them hitting a bong at a dorm party. Or, in my oldest cousin's case, he was applying for an IT job with a company in Nashville...a company he had blasted and cursed them to the 7th ring of hell and joked about torching the place on Facebook after they had turned him down at a job fair the year before. And he's pissed at them for what he said being used against him.

 

[JustKate]

I can't figure the damn thing out. I get notices of "so and so is a friend of your friend." Like I care? I don't know the person.

I set as many privacy settings as possible to "friends only," rarely visit, don't play games on it, don't care (let my friends email me, that's what email is for).

I'm seriously thinking of canceling it. I can't figure out the point of it.

The only thing that I've found Facebook to be actually good for is if you have a group of some sort - family members, alumni group, whatever - and you all need to kind of chat with each other at the same time. If you have several people, all of whom need to be part of the conversation, you can do this easier through Facebook than through email or phone calls, assuming that everybody who needs to be involved uses Facebook.

But other than that, I agree that phone calls and email are generally superior. And waaaaaay less annoying.

 

[JonathonWally]

TGS has a point. Some people do take the Facebook too far. I know I've gotten requests from people who I knew in grade school that I rarely talked to then.

What's with the drama about it? Either friend them or don't. It's not a difficult decision.

Except for those folks that don't take "no" for an answer. Which is, in my experience, about a third of the people that send me a friend's request. It starts out easy enough with denying their request, then it escalates to their getting pissed at me and raising a stink cause I don't want to be their friend.

Or, the more recent fun, one of my wife's coworkers sent me a friend's request. Wife was in my account and approved it. Next time she works with the wife and show up to drop off the wife's lunch-- the coworker tells the wife that I had friended her [the coworker]-- and saying it was okay cause she didn't want my wife to think anything was going on between the two of us I defriend the woman, next thing I know she's mad cause I defriended her.

So melodramatic!

 

[Broccoli]

There is only one picture (that I am aware of) of me on the net that has me w/o my shirt and shows my chest painted like a playing card. It is not on Facebook (I never put it up there), but connected to my school's newspaper. It was a skit that I was a part of during a fundraiser event. I am not embarrassed by it, but hopefully potential employers will see the article connected to the picture, because I cannot get the picture taken down (the paper claim's they cannot take it down for some such reason).

 

[kimc]

Personally I like Facebook as a great way to keep up with people I don't get to see very often. For me it's the quality of the friends on my account rather than the quantity that's important.

Many simply aren't into it though or they may prefer to keep their accounts for a specific purpose (extended family only, etc) that don't include you. IMO, if a friend request gets rejected it's not worth getting upset about or even following up on.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I don't have a Facebook, just a Twitter account, a personal site (which is my blog), and then Bookzek, which I run. I figure that's sufficient. Any results for my real name are really ambiguous and you'd have to dig pretty deep to find anything bad on me, and all I've really got is a warped sense of humor.

 

[Kestra]

Same here. My privacy policy is indeed very restrictive, and even in case of a major break-in, there is nothing embarrassing or unseeingly there: probably the most incriminating evidences are my tastes in music. I shiver thinking what people put on their facebook page: drunken pictures, job-related rants, personal addresses, etc. It's a disaster waiting to happen.

I was horrified when my mother-in-law friended me on facebook along with her sister (my husband's aunt). My aunt and uncle soon followed. I set aside time to go through my facebook page to make sure it was all good and decent, then realized that I have absolutely nothing scandalous or horrible on my page at all. Of course I had gone through it earlier and changed settings because I have friends on there that are contacts for work, and potential clients as well.

 

[the 4th hanson bro]

Here's an example of Facebook when it goes horribly wrong: http://facebookfails.com/

And an article on the potential long lasting effects of putting something on Facebook:

It’s amazing what a simple Internet search can uncover.

For example, in researching prospects for The Hot List, I came across one particular player’s MySpace page that did not show him in the best of lights.

The problem is pretty straightforward: Jokes that are funny when you’re in your mid-teens tend not to be funny to other groups – in this case women, or most adults in general. But with some very quick searching, I found this prospect was not alone; some of his peers also left an unseemly electronic breadcrumb trail that, I would have to expect, could illicit some pretty damning questions when the NHL draft combine comes up in the summer.

Imagine – you walk into a conference room filled with scouts and executives from an NHL team you idolized as a kid and the first question is about a vulgar comment you made on the Internet. Is it getting hot in here, or is just me?

 

[Galactus]

you guys really are different than the rest of the population in just about everything.

 

[Gryffindorian]

Although I use Facebook, I'm proud to say I'm not an addict like some members of my family. I only signed up because I thought it would be fun to connect with on-line friends and relatives (in addition to the usual cell phone and e-mails). You'd be surprised to know that my 14 (count them, 14) friends/contacts consist of my brother and sisters, nephews and nieces (most of them anyway), whom I see or hear from every waking day of my life, and a few on-line contacts. Some of my closest friends and dearest family members aren't even on Facebook, or I simply prefer to chat with them in person or over the phone.

As for the work aspect of it, I'm currently employed full-time and have no plans to leave the company for another 20 years. I couldn't care less what prospective employers or my current employer thinks about my posts, which are set on private (Friends Only).

EDIT: I've got nothing to hide, and most of my posts/pics are rated G to PG. I have no genuine interest in friending co-workers, old classmates, old neighbors or childhood acquaintances.

 

[An Officer]

you guys really are different than the rest of the population in just about everything.

It's the beauty of the place. I don't think I could cope with foruming with the great unwashed on a regular basis.

 

[iguana_tonante]

you guys really are different than the rest of the population in just about everything.

It's the beauty of the place. I don't think I could cope with foruming with the great unwashed on a regular basis.

I'm not different from the rest of the population. I'm just better.

 

[ALF]

I would love to drop Facebook but I can't.

The nature of my income requires me to continue networking and doing innovating browser applications and design. FB is an extension of that virtual network.

As much as I'd like to walk away from it... I get more emails per day on FB than I do my own email account. I can't go through FB and collect hundreds of emails, plus most people don't even put their contact email on FB.

 

[sidious618]

I did a search via Yahoo! for my name and my facebook page didn't come up. I did, however, learn that there is a priest who shares my name that sexually molests people.

 

[Sakrysta]

You know the best way to keep an employer from finding incriminating material about you on the web? DON'T DO THE STUPID STUFF TO BEGIN WITH. I'm amazed how few people (not you guys - just people in general) seem to get that. People are so worried about privacy and hiding their true selves from potential recrimination. Just be a decent person. Don't do stuff that would prevent you from achieving your goals. Don't maintain relationships that are likely to damage your future. How hard is this?

I enjoy Facebook a great deal. I don't do the application thing. I think the quizzes are lame. (Okay, I took a few of those and found out they were lame. ) And I've never tried any of the games. I spend enough time communicating on Facebook without getting into the side stuff. What I love about it is that I do get to reconnect with friends I had lost touch with and keep in touch with extended, distant family. I get to see pictures I wouldn't otherwise see. I find out friend and family news that I otherwise wouldn't know at all, and we all interact much more than we would without Facebook.

I have friended people who later I have unfriended because of their activities. Others end up just being annoying - those I just hide in my news feed. I don't post anything that I'm uncomfortable having everyone see, which means I don't usually post depressed or otherwise highly personal status updates. If I wanted to do that, I'd blog. Facebook is for keeping up, not personal promotion.

 

[ALF]

Facebook is for keeping up, not personal promotion.

Exactly. When I go on FB, I try to keep it limited to 15~20 minutes a day. Otherwise I'm wasting time. Within 15~20 I should be able to get my correspondence networking done and get out.

 

[Capn Flukie]

*sends billcosby a Farmville friend request*

 

[AstroSmurf]

Personally I like Facebook as a great way to keep up with people I don't get to see very often. For me it's the quality of the friends on my account rather than the quantity that's important.

Ditto. I will usually ignore most of the people on Facebook who collect "Friends". If I want to talk to you or have a need to keep up with you than I will "friend" you. And I enjoy FB for that purpose. I have reconnected with a number of friends I had lost touch with over the years. And really the only thing that I am addicted to in regards to FB is Farm Town. *sigh* I think I need a twelve step program.

As for putting anything on FB that I would feel weird about anyone seeing... I have nothing incriminating. I will complain about work every so often but it is nothing I would really care about others seeing. Besides, I have set myself up so that I can't be searched. I will also do a periodic google search to see if I pop up. (I never do except for my plans for the NX-01.) I think the worst thing is when I do a search for my username and all my posts pop up from here. But for the most part I have remained anonymous on the web. I may not have anything to hide but at the same time I would prefer to keep myself as private as possible. Anonymity is wonderful. I enjoy being a ghost.

 

[Australis]

Long story short. A relative got in touch, said an old schoolfriend wanted to get in touch. Now, this girl was my first big unrequited crush, how could I say no? So I joined FB. We exchanged emails for a while, that reached a point where they were not rude or anything, but loaded with personal detail, and it all got a bit too close, and so we both pulled back, and I don't ear from her now.

In the meantime, a bunch of girls I went to school with friended me. Not so unusual. But I did last see these girls in 1970... it was a while ago. I seem to have made an impression, even in primary school. So I drop in now and then, more out of curiosity than any thing. I get lots of kidnap and farmville and scrabble requests, and ignore them all, I waste too much time in this particular forum to start wasting it elsewhere as well.

It'... odd. No... weird.

All my friends, bar one, are female. One is my sister, one a cousin, the rest women I've met since I was a kid. Anyone else have a similar trend?