Privacy

I have been thinking a lot about privacy this week. Let me give you a little background story that got me thinking.

Over the past few months, I have been involved in an online group of other moms in a public forum. Most public forums and groups that I have looked into have been a waste of time. However, I stumbled upon a really great group that I actually benefit a lot from. The group is for women who have children born in March of 2010, like my little man. We discuss what challenges we face with a toddler or what milestone our baby is trying to conquer. I was really thrilled to find a group of really nice women who were going through most of the same stuff I was. Well, this week something went terribly wrong with my happy, little group. One of the moms made us all aware that the comments and pictures we post are not as private as we believed. A new search engine out there called boardreader.com has thrown everyone for a loop. The search engine works like this: You type in your screen name and in 2 seconds every conversation you have ever had on an online message board pops up. Because of this realization, many of the ladies started checking other search engines. They found out that if you google your screen name, pictures of your own child start showing up.

Needless to say, everyone started freaking out. They felt violated and mistreated. Fingers started pointing. People began to blame the website for the problem. Nasty letters were written. Ladies started spending countless hours trying desperately to delete every comment and post they had made in the last year. Many of these ladies had posted inappropriate content, pictures and comments in other groups on the site. Some shared very personal and private infomation. My cheerful little group filled with teething questions and encouraging advice sort of fell apart at the seams.

Okay, so what's the issue? Upon a little investigation, I discovered that the website we are part of is indeed a public forum. That means that nothing is exclusive. Anyone wanting to join the discussion is welcome. Anyone wanting information about say...a teething 12 month old, can google that phrase and come upon our message board. Nothing is private.

My husband always tells me that anything I put online is open to the public. Anything. Even the things that we think are private. Think about a private email. We like to think that if we send an email to someone discussing personal matters it will be seen by the recipient's eyes only. Well, what is to stop that person from forwarding the email to someone else without our knowledge? The same occurs on facebook. We can set our privacy settings to allow only friends to view our information, videos, and pictures. But, who is to stop a "friend" from copying and pasting one of your pictures? Or your phone number or address. (Just to make myself perfectly clear, it is NOT a good idea to put your phone number or address on your facebook page. Make sure to check your information tab. It may be there and you don't realize.)Not to mention that anyone can add and tag you in a picture, but not everyone has their privacy settings set to a very high level. Statuses talking badly about a teacher, friend, or coworker are easily shown and read to anyone. The status on facebook has become for some people some kind of a diary. We must remember that those posts are for everyone to see.

Have you ever noticed that people get braver behind a computer screen? Myself included. I am much more outspoken in print. In fact, I have a shameful memory of "cussing out" a boy from my high school online. My friends and I chatted on MSN messenger almost every night. I was angry at a guy for treating me wrong, and I cussed him out. It was horribly mean. I regretted it almost immediately. I said things that I would never have said in person. I hate that I said those things. I hate that I wasn't myself. And I hated that I hid behind a computer screen instead of facing my problems head on.

David Webb from Cademons Call said You would be more godly if you knew your thoughts would be on the 5 o'clock news. I think they same should be applied to the internet. You would post more godly if you knew your statuses, pictures, and comments would be on the 5 o'clock news.