By Aislinn Martin

    In the past 4 years, Facebook has taken the world by storm. However, the massive number of users of this social network should come as no surprise.

    Facebook became a pioneer in social networking with features like a news feed, photo tagging, and interactive applications or “apps” that include everything from games to photo editing.

    While Facebook is a fun, addictive, and relatively safe site, it certainly has its flaws. Due to the simplicity of the network’s methods of sharing information, it is impossible to know who is seeing your “stuff”.

    When someone posts a photo on Facebook, they can tag one of their friends in the photo. Basically what this means is that the photo will show up on their site as one of their photos as well. They can decline the offer for the photo tag but the photo will still remain online and in the Facebook community. Once a photo is posted online, it is out there, no matter what measures are taken by the people in the photo to remove it.

     Several North Scott students have come under fire recently when administrators obtained copies of several photos of a party. These photos allegedly showed these underage students engaging in illegal activities—if you know what I mean.  The photos were clearly attained from Facebook. These students did not face legal consequences, but they did however face school related punishments such as sitting out of their sports.

    Private information that is posted in an online forum can not only hurt underage students, but also educated adults who are seeking jobs. In a 2007 survey conducted by Ponemon Institute, it was reported that 35 % of hiring managers use Google to research job candidates and 23% use social networking sites. Many of these searches lead to rejection. And due rise in users of social networks (Facebook now has 350 million), these numbers could have grown significantly in the last two years.

    Imagine having your dream job taken from you over a wall post, or sitting the bench this season because someone got too camera happy at a kegger. What you do in your spare time is private business, but as soon as it shows up on the internet, it is no longer private. Don’t let what is online interfere with your life.