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Raw Bytes Computer News KPBX FM 91.1 Spokane Public Radio National Public Radio Network Frank Delaney Producer Broadcast on Wednesday Morning 7:35 AM During Morning Edition Support Public Radio ! The Theater Of the Mind |
In
computer news this week
04/11/2012 The downside of social networking – part 3 Facebook – the current king of social networking today
– is telling people that they never have to turn over their Facebook
passwords to prospective employers That’s true in a sense, but I think it can also provide a
sense of false security. A prospective employer can’t force you to turn over your
Facebook password, and there’s a couple senators now
working on legislation to ban that. However, even without having the password to your Facebook
account, prospective employers can gain a great deal of information about
you; information that they couldn’t ask you in a job interview. By looking at your FB page they can see if you are married, have children, your age, ethnicity, religion, political views
and affiliations, and anything else that you have posted for the world to
see. 2 of the books I’ve reviewed in the past couple of year
– The Dumbest Generation by
Mark Bauerline and The Cult of the Amateur
– How Today’s Internet is Killing our Culture - by Andrew Keen – both mention
how most younger people today think that they can say anything they want
online and that it’s protected by freedom of speech. It’s not, and you can’t. If you write something
damaging about another person, it’s libel, and
you can be punished and sued for what you say if it damages the other person. I’ve watched 2 recent television court shows recently
involving Facebook where people sued other people
because of derogatory comments the other people made on Facebook. In one case
a woman didn’t get a Nanny job because someone had said on her FB page
that she was unfit to be around children, and the judge awarded her 6 months
of the salary she would have earned. People also have a false sense of anonymity when they surf the
web. You really don’t have that. Everyone connected to the web via computer, cell phone or
whatever has a unique address that can be traced back to you. Even if you
send email thru some phony email account you’ve set up to be anonymous,
or pontificate in some anonymous blog, it’s still traceable back
to you. I’ll be reviewing a new book on this subject next month, Digital Vertigo by Andrew Keen, who states:. “On the Internet, sharing is a trap. Today's digital cult
of the social - which encourages us all to share our ideas, our habits, our
friends, even our possessions on the Internet - is an assault on the
individual liberty of 21st century men and women. This book exposes the illusions and delusions of social media
ideologues and reveals the dangers of collective identity and behavior in our
social media age. If you remember a few weeks ago I had read the findings of The
internet research group http://www.pewinternet.org/ -
Social
networking sites and our lives – Which stated: Facebook
users are more trusting than others. So
today we have Facebook encouraging its users to be completely open and share
all the details of their lives and interests and to network with other
people. Where the 60’s had the Peace and
Love movement, today we have this Facebook movement. But
as Andrew Keen says, is posting all this information an assault on our
individual liberty? That’s
a question we all have to answer for ourselves, and determine where to draw
the lines. For Raw Bytes This is Frank Delaney (C) 2012 MTA Micro Technology Associates http://www.mtamicro.com/kpbxmenu.html (509)624-7230 |
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