Social Networking: Can You Keep Your Life Private?
When Facebook first launched, it was a social networking site for college students, but as the social network concept in Web 2.0 started to catch on, Facebook quickly became a site for the masses. Now almost anyone can set up a profile on Facebook and join a network.
To help deal with the privacy concerns people have had with posting their personal life on the Internet and not suffering consequences at work or with the law, Facebook established privacy settings everybody can set based on their own comfort level.
But even with privacy settings, you may not be entirely protected from embarrassment of having private aspects of your personal life flaunted on Facebook. Patrick found this out firsthand after he asked his wife, Tammie, for a divorce.
The IT worker in Florida talked to Time about his unpleasant experience with divorce and Facebook. Shortly after Patrick asked for a divorce, Tammie wrote about it on his wall, a section for public comments that friends and people within the network can see, depending on privacy settings.
Patrick didn’t want his marital problems to be public to his colleagues, clients, friends and family so he deleted the post and blocked his wife from viewing his profile. A few days later Patrick found out from friends on Facebook that Tammie had used a mutual friend’s account to look at his profile and e-mail women he had talked to through the site.
According to Patrick the message Tammie sent are defamatory, but Tammie claims she only told people Patrick was married with children because he didn’t include that on his profile.
While social networking can lead to your public life being broadcast to the world, divorce lawyers have found these sites possibly helpful in the divorce process. Personal information from these sites can be used by divorce lawyer to build or poke holes in one spouse’s case.
Social networking can also help people through the divorce, if you learn how to use it to your advantage, while being guarded about some details in your life. Since the divorce has become public, Tammie has received many encouraging message from friends and family offering support.
Patrick has also learn a lesson and understands social networks better: “It’s like putting everybody you know in the same room. I’m using it, but I’m much more careful.”
