Facebook foolishness

The 175 million of us who have a Facebook account are constantly warned to be smart about what we feature on our profiles. No one wants to sacrifice a dream job for a few controversial elements on a Facebook page. After all, potential employers could see our pages.

If our dream job involves politics, potential voters will undoubtedly have instant access to the foolish antics of our youth and decide not to vote for someone who included photos of himself and his friends “not inhaling” on his Facebook page 20 years ago.

That’s why I pity the candidates who will run in the presidential election of 2028. They are members of our generation who probably have Facebook accounts. Chances are, it wouldn’t take very much fishing around to find useful evidence for smear campaigns against them.

When our generation runs for president, most of the candidates’ skeletons will come out of their closets the minute they declare their candidacy, if not sooner. Everything included on the Internet is instantly launched into the public domain (made possible in part by the copy/paste function).

Facebook users, bloggers and other social networkers tend to think that “removing the tag” solves the problem. Some of the more paranoid users believe that deleting photos and other items altogether is a surefire way to get rid of them for good. But as Fox News put it, “share it once, share it for life.”

Facebook has been a hot topic in the news since last Monday when it came out that the site had changed its Terms of Use. When an account is first opened, the Terms of Use explain a license that allows Facebook to share content with third parties. Even though Facebook suggests – in all caps and bold font – that users read the terms, most people skip over the lengthy paragraphs.

On Feb. 4, Facebook removed the “kill switch.” That meant that even if users deleted the content on their profiles, Facebook had the right to keep other copies indefinitely.
They argued that, at one point, some of it had already been shared with other users anyway.

It’s a good point. We leave the content of our Facebook pages in the hands of anyone whose friend request we accept.

Due to an uproar from privacy advocates and other users, Facebook decided to revert back to its old Terms of Use. It will keep the Electronic Information Privacy Center quiet, but it won’t do much to prevent our future leaders’ college shenanigans from being leaked before they can say, “Vote for me.”

The fact that the public will know so much about our future leaders’ private lives and past mistakes could be detrimental to the effectiveness of their time in office. Knowing so much about our leaders will end up making them seem like some less-than-impressive, impulsive social networker whose friendship we could request on Facebook – rather than a Commander-in-Chief.