Are Your Child’s Private Messages Exposed?
My friend, Renee, sent me an email this week with really disturbing news.
Facebook experienced a glitch causing old private messages to become public on my timeline.
Not just me, but every Facebook user.
I wasn’t all that concerned about myself; I don’t really say much on Facebook that I wouldn’t want others to read.
What about my kids though?
To say the least, they were in shocked! Since this breach applied to all private messages in 2010 and prior, what had they said a couple of years ago that they thought no one would ever see?
Fixing the problem on our end was easy. (Just click here to fix your’s.)
A problem remained though: even if they took the message off their wall, it still remained on the wall of their friend they conversed with.
Guys they liked, plans for the weekend…all out there for all to see. Fortunately, most of it was harmless.
All this exposure reminds me of a picture hanging in my girl’s bedroom:
“You have nothing to fear as long as you have nothing to hide.”
If your child has a Facebook account, this might be a great opportunity to talk to her/him about the public availability of the information they put online.
On more than one occasion I have heard of people passed up for a a job or fired based on information that originated with social media. While I am sure at some point, the government while say something about privacy and the internet, at this point, I am unaware of any laws that forbid it.
Ask your child today how often they use private messaging on Facebook or Twitter.
How would they feel if suddenly all the world could see those messages? It definitely can happen!
P.S. A friend on Facebook just shared with me that is was in fact a hoax. For more information, click here.
I’d love to connect with you on Facebook at Lynn Martin Cowell and on Twitter at LynnCowell!