Lemmings - to the sea!

I find it amusing the near hysteria being reported over the past couple of weeks over people quitting Facebook, invoking "mass Facebook 'suicide' pacts", the mirror of a couple of years ago when everyone was jumping on the Facebook bandwagon. The reality is that in any online social media site - including Twitter & Flickr - user information can be used, either directly or indirectly by the site owners or by people hacking the sites.

People, especially those who have grown up with the internet, forget that what goes on the internet can stay on the internet a long, long time. Furthermore, database mining tools are very powerful in the hands of people that know how to use them. However people, to wave your hands in panic is not only disingenuous, it shows the vast ignorance of what the computers do best - store and sort data.

While the actions of Facebook over the past few years are deplorable in the sense of sacrificing their customer's privacy and trust for a quick buck, most people should be smacked for not taking proper precautions in the first place. If you don't want people to know certain information, don't put it on the internet, or at least control what information is being released. An easy fix for email accounts is to create a junk email account on Hotmail, Yahoo, Google or whatever and use that as a way of screening who gets to email you.

People - take some personal responsibility here! Facebook is just a communication tool!