Once it’s out there, it’s out there forever.

So I was watching Criminal Minds last week and the episode was about a killer who stalks your social network and kills you due to his obsession he has. So one of the quotes that made me think was; ‘The internet. Once it’s out there, it’s out there forever’. This was then linked to social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Hi5, MySpace etc.... This quote emphasised on the fact that once you create an account on the social networking site then your information is out there forever. Like Facebook for example, once you have made an account with Facebook, you can’t delete your account. I mean, you can deactivate it but you can actually delete all the information because when you signed up for Facebook you clicked on the ‘I agree’ button where it shows you the terms and conditions and that you read all of it and understood it. But if you actually read the terms and conditions, there is a clause that states that Facebook has the rights to keep your information.

Another aspect that this episode emphasises on is the fact that the posting people post up on these networking sites such as Facebook. I mean, they post nearly everything they do to on their wall like someone is interested in what they are doing. For example, one post may say “at home after work” then 5 minutes later “going to take a shower” then 30 minutes later “is cooking dinner, Yum!”. But is there really someone out there, reading all these posts that you posted up? Facebook gives the user the feeling that someone is actually following what you are doing. Just like twitter.

It’s not just social networking sites that gets posted on the internet and remains there forever. Just about anything that is posted up by users can be out there forever and is available to the world at large.

The only security that Facebook gives to the user is the privacy settings and either add or reject a ‘friend request’. But overall, whatever is posted on the internet is always out there forever. So next time when you make a Facebook and/ or twitter status update, just remember that you don’t need to post your daily movements because no one is actually following you (unless they’re a stalker). Also be warned about what information you release on the internet and social networks too.