This is actually not about "your" profile on "Gather," but rather about "your profile," on any publically available social networking and publishing website. An article from the National Association of Colleges and Employers contains yet another horror story about a prospective hire's Facebook being checked — with a different twist. The interviewee had enabled privacy on his profile, '[b]ut, during the interview, something he was not prepared for happened. The interviewer began asking specific questions about the content on his Facebook.com listing and the situation became very awkward and uncomfortable. The son had thought only those he allowed to access his profile would be able to do so. But, the interviewer explained that as a state agency, recruiters accessed his Facebook account under the auspices of the Patriot Act.' How can a 'state agency' use the Patriot Act to subpoena a Facebook profile? So now ask yourself - should the Patriot Act be a carte blanche to unlock social networking sites when there is no probable cause? When an agency is simply background checking a potential candidate (or just curious)....
Public or Private?
MySpace.com, for instance, invites visitors to "Create a private community on MySpace and you can share photos, journals, and interests with your growing network of mutual friends!" Even though MySpace says in this invitation on it's "About" page that the communities are "private," in a separate area of the site—one titled "Safety Tips"—MySpace warns, "Don't forget that your profile and MySpace forums are public spaces. Don't post anything you wouldn't want the world to know (e.g., your phone number, address, IM screen name, or specific whereabouts). Avoid posting anything that would make it easy for a stranger to find you, such as where you hang out every day after school."
In other SNS News:Hitwise is reporting that MySpace has reached the top, surpassing Yahoo! Mail as the most visited site on the internet for US users. Seeing a 4300% increase in visits in just two short years, this internet sensation has come quite a long ways. From the article: 'To put MySpace's growth in perspective, if we look back to July 2004 myspace.com represented only .1% of all Internet visits. This time last year myspace.com represented 1.9% of all Internet visits. With the week ending July 8, 2006 market share figure of 4.5% of all the US Internet visits.'
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Comments: 27
Perhaps we all should be using pseudonyms.
Magi
There are even less protections for people overseas. You have no protection from US agencies -- Period. The point is simply to assume that everything you publish may be viewable by US agencies - and you don't have to be informed of it. This may not happen on Gather - but assume everything you publish is pubic information. I think about this quite a bit, since I know I publish some pretty racy stuff - but thats a choice I make, even though I spend about 40% of my current job consulting to one of these three letter agencies -- I know they could easily find everything I have published... and I am fine with that.
Magi (true believer)
thank you so much for this valuable information.
This just goes to show what negatives come from them both.
I mean, I guess I assume my bank tries to protect my account information and passwords and such but other than that I kind of just assume that whatever you put out there is . . . well . . . out there.
While I agree w what others have said about the "patriot act" I also agree with what Will said:
> "There are even less protections for people overseas. "
We all need to keep that in mind. No matter how much we think how recessive the US 'patriot act' is, we have it good in comparison with many other countries around the world. With that being said, as others have already mentioned, Will & Jake come immediately to mind...we have no privacy when we write anything that will be distributed on the net: emails, blogs, gather, dating sites, whatever... remember we all have no privacy.
Now, if that's not important to you, then good for you. But many of us cherish their privacy for various reasons and personal value judgements about those people who try to maintain their privacy are simply that. Personal opinions, not based on fact.
As I have said many times before: I find it amazing that so many people would actually want all their personal info circulating around the net. We all need to think about the consequences of our actions before taking those actions.
Ovbiously this is a hot topic, and since we all publish and connect in this space - its close to all of us.
Some people intentionally create a pulbic persona - completely manufactured, and spread it all over the net. This is actually a highly useful thing to consider. I was first thinking about this re: security and protection for teenagers that are net savvy (but gullible, and without common sense), but I think we might all consider this. It's no different than celebrities whose entire persona is manufactured by publicity, image consultants, and marketing managers. We can all adopt the same strategy with varying tactics to deliver a public self which then muddies the waters - that is, it introduces more 'noise' and deminishes clear signals. There is no unwritten law that your online instantiation and meatspace identity need be the same.
I can form no opinion of good or bad from this for that reason.