I remember being told as a child not to give out too much information over the phone–especially about things like if my parents weren’t home. But with the relatively new social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter, even grown-ups are having to learn about the ramifications as we go along.
We posted a story not long ago about the problems of tweeting while on jury duty. Now USA Today has published a story about a guy who tweeted his vacation plans, and ended up getting robbed.
As the article points out, “Most people wouldn’t leave a recording on a home answering machine telling callers they’re on vacation for a week, and most people wouldn’t let mail or newspapers pile up while they were away. But users of social media think nothing of posting real-time vacation photos on Facebook showing themselves on beaches hundreds of miles from home, or sending out automatic e-mail messages that say, ‘I’m out of the country for a week.’”
Yahoo’s tech blog put it this way: “Those ill-reasoned tweets offered the burglars all the opportunity and information they needed to do the job — in real-time, no less.”
Remember: by default, anything you say on Twitter is broadcast to everyone, at almost instantaneous Internet speeds, not just friends who are following you. In fact, Twitter missives are searchable and updated continuously. If you have a small base of Twitter followers and to know them all personally, set your account to “Protect my updates” under the Settings function if you’re determined to tweet vacation plans.
Same goes for Facebook and MySpace: You might want to make your Profile visible only to friends if a lot of information on your wall is too revealing of your privacy.
Tags: Almost Instantaneous Internet Speeds, In Real-Time, Internet Speed