Let’s face it. We can’t live without Facebook. We love being nosy and finding out what our friends are up to. With so many social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, the people that we can meet are endless. As a fan of Twitter (when I can be bothered to use it, out of sheer boredom), I am fascinated with the different types of people who follow me. For regular readers of my blog, you know I love watching documentaries, so this post is no different. The show entitled “Don’t Blame Facebook” explored different uses of social networking sites and how they don’t always work in our favour. It seems like they are more of an hinderance than help. I think everyone should be aware that you can never been too sure of who is monitoring, reading or sharing your social media timeline.
Davey Taylor was using MySpace a lot in order to update his friends about his whereabouts and what he’s getting up to. It’s amazing the type of information we give away to strangers when we are updating. Harmless, right? WRONG!!!!! After a night out from a party, he came home to find one of his MySpace followers in his BED. It seems a bit far fetched, I agree, but when he thought about some of the comments he’d been sharing, it was no surprise that the guy knew exactly where he lived. One of the comments he had shared on MySpace was “Moving into my own place tonight…. Finally some freeeeeeedom. Call me the King of George Street!” To me, this was really stupid. You wouldn’t give your address to a stranger on the street so why would you do it online? I’ve said in many posts before common sense isn’t as common as it should be. In fact, that was stupidity. The guy had convinced the flat mates that he was a friend of Davey’s in order to gain entry into the flat. It just goes to prove that you should think about what you write on the Internet. It’s so easy to want to inform everyone of your doings but you never know who is reading it. Once you publish something on the Internet, it is hard to retrieve it.
Camron Reilly was a Scots Guard employed by the Ministry of Defence to protect the Royal family days before the marriage of Kate Middleton and Prince William last year. A few days before the wedding he updated his Facebook status which read “hue and William drove past me on Friday and all I got was a sh***y wave while she looked the opposite way from me. Stupid stuck up cow am a not good enough for them! Posh bi**h … who really gives a f**k about hur”. Firstly, his spelling, punctuation and grammar makes me wonder how he got a job in the first place *rolls eyes and shakes head in disbelief*. Secondly, he has quite an important job so you’d think he’d be a bit more discreet with what he shares on Facebook. It would be really funny if the Queen herself was scrolling through her Facebook newsfeed and came across his comment. MoD were not impressed by it and questioned whether Reilly was capable of protecting the royal family and Kate Middleton, a future queen. He was given a “less glamourous” role within MoD.
There were two friends, Leigh Van Bryan and Emily Banting, who were planning a trip to L.A Hollywood. He was so excited about his trip, he constantly tweeted about it. One of the tweets were “We are totally in LA in 3 weeks on Hollywood Blvd and digging up Marilyn Monroe.” The next tweet “free this week for a quick gossip / prep before I go and destroy America?” was the one that was unknowingly going to get him in trouble when he landed at LAX airport. They searched his belongings as well as going through the content of his phone. In an interview he said “Airport security told me that how I answered his questions would determine whether or not we were allowed in. Then he asked me if I had a Twitter account, and I thought ‘Oh no he’s going to want me to follow him.’” I’m sure security have better things to do than increase the amount of Twitter followers they have. That was a really stupid thing to say, especially on national television. Silly man! Anyways, he explained to the officials that he wasn’t a terrorist and that destroy meant “drink”. They were questioned and booted out of America and sent back to England. He did admit that now, before he sends a tweet, he constantly thinks about what he is writing, how it could be misunderstood and so on. Too late, mate. You should have thought about this sooner.
Moral of the story: If you wouldn’t share certain information with strangers on the street, then don’t share it online. I’ve always thought that social media sites are more hassle than they are worth and these examples prove me right. Think twice before you click the share/send/tweet button.
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