Why I'm reluctant to join Facebook…

[ufkacbln]

As an experiment some time ago in a similar thread about internet security - I looked into another forummer (with their knowledge)

Within a few minutes I had pictures of his house, (and consequently address)wife, kids, bikes, dog and horse. You would be surprised exactly what is out there!

 

[buggi]

i'm on facebook and because of it i met up with 2 girls the other night who i haven't seen for 23 years (god i'm so old!). we were best friends at school and it was really nice to catch up. probably would never have been able to track them down otherwise.

there's no problems with facebook as long as you do the following.
Go into your account settings and turn them all "on", (you can use the "profile preview" bit to check what non-friends can see).
go into account and application settings and turn off all email alerts (because they will drive you mad!)

then you're good to go. people you may know (from details you have put on there, like your workplace or maybe because you have mutual friends on there) will be alerted to the fact that you have an account on facebook but they will not be able to know if you are online or not until they have requested your friendship and it has been accepted. After that, you can turn off your online status anyway if you want.

you don't have to accept friendship invites and if you really don't want someone to see you are on there you can block them, as said, and they won't know you have an account.

i've never had any problems with facebook.

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

i'm on facebook and because of it i met up with 2 girls the other night who i haven't seen for 23 years (god i'm so old!). we were best friends at school

You could have been friends in primary one and haven't seen them since then, which means you would be about 28 by now!


I'm more concerned about all the truly cringey things I have said on internet forums and newsgroups over the years, and in fact, type in your own name into google and see what comes up. It's actuallly quite frightening when you see things you said about 10 years ago suddenly pop up!!

Who knows, someone might be able to Google this thread in 10 years time and think what a bunch of total retards we were all being about Facebook.
If that is you, then hello, and appolligies in advance fro all teh typoos dear future reader!

Seriously though, just think about it, WE ARE NOT SAFE!