We’ve all been told about the perils of posting scandalous photos of ourselves and our friends on social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. Happy memories from a night on the town, we’re told, can quickly lead to jobs not offered and livelihoods not made.
A report out of ABC News this week reveals that perhaps some students are starting to get the message. The article chronicles the experience of an anonymous law student who had her picture downloaded from Facebook and entered into an online beauty contest on infamously bawdy law school discussion board Xoxohth.com. Throughout the article, the student references her worry that she might look unprofessional in the eyes of would-be employers.
And this worry is real. Just yesterday British Prime Minister Tony Blair had what certainly must have been an embarrassing moment when this picture surfaced in an Evening Standard article that day.
And, of course, who can forget our own leader? President Bush’s youthful antics at the Texas Governor’s mansion have been captured for all eternity on YouTube.
Combine this with the recent firing of Amanda Marcotte from John Edward’s presidential campaign for the slimy trail she left all over the web, and I’m beginning to think I should go back and make some changes to my own Facebook profile.
Bianca Posterli @ Sun, 03/04/2007 - 8:39am
I think we're all extremely well-versed in the dangers of Facebook and what we put online. I've deleted all my photos from Facebook in the past month and actually deleted my account recently, for a undetermined period of time.
What I am afraid of, is the impact Facebook will have on the younger generations. My mother told me about someone who got rejected from college after she had been accepted because of pictures, and I read about someone who was arrested because of their Facebook. My brother is a freshman in HIGH SCHOOL and has Facebook. That's 4 more years of dangerous information out on the internet that won't go away, and THAT makes me nervous.
~Bianca