An article published the 12th October 2010, in The New York Times, explains what type of information should go on a private message and not on a wall comment. According to Roy Lieber , “Don’t Tell Facebook Friends That You’re Going Away” he advises us not to write on Facebook when we are going out on holiday or when we are leaving home because that information can be useful for thieves since they can guess when you are away from home. Identity Theft 911, an organization that enables and serves businesses and organizations that wish to protect consumers against identity theft, suggests us that we should avoid writing our date of birth so as to prevent our information from Identity thieves and that we also should not post our address. It also advises us, as mentioned above, not to post details about when we are out and not to play quizzes, which can expose pieces of information of ourselves to the ones that have made the quizzes.
There are also another lists where have been written what not to put on Facebook. In this one 6 Things You Should Never Reveal on Facebook, they suggest us not to reveal our birth date and place. Of course, “you can say what day you were born, but if you provide the year and where you were born too, you have just given identity thieves a key to stealing your financial life”, said Givens, executive director of the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse. Another important advise given on this article is that we should not write information about when you go on holiday. You can upload the photos when you return, but saying when you are out of home is like inviting thieves to your house.
Finally, there is another interesting article called 7 Things to Stop Doing Now on Facebook. Here, as the heading says, are written some things nobody should do on Facebook. For example, using a weak password; you always should mix letters, numbers and symbols, and the password should never have less than 8 characters. Apart from this, the minimum age to have a Facebook account is 13 years, so you must not let younger children to have one. If you have a young child on Facebook, the best way to avoid possible problems and to provide oversight is to, apart from becoming their online friend, use your e-mail address for their account in order to receive their notifications and to know what kind of activities they are in. ”What they think is nothing can actually be pretty serious,” says Charles Pavelites, a supervisory special agent at the Internet Crime Complaint Center.
References:
- Jennifer Saranow Schultz, What not to tell Facebook friends (October 12, 2010), Consulting date: December 18, 2010, from: <http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/12/what-not-to-tell-facebook-friends/?scp=3&sq=social+networking&st=cse>
- Identity Theft 911, Leading the way in true hands-on identity resolution (2010), Consulting date: December 18, 2010, from: <http://identitytheft911.com/home.htm>
- Kathy Kristof, 6 things you should not tell Facebook friends (September 14, 2010), Consulting date: December 18, 2010, from: <http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/110674/6-things-you-should-never-reveal-on-facebook>
- Consumer Reports Magazine, 7 Things to stop doing now on Facebook ( May 12, 2010), Consulting date: December 18, 2010, from: <http://finance.yahoo.com/family-home/article/109538/7-things-to-stop-doing-now-on-facebook>
Filed under: Social networks 
