Bart Wilson let us see the reasons why we may want to restrict how we use Twitter, Foursquare, Facebook Places and Facebook in general! Thanks Bart for a facinating story and for bringing us the video. Please do watch the video!
Here's the dark side of Facebook PLACES. It just went live on Wednesday last week -- so the Bartman decided to give it a whirl.
I was celebrating a killer July sales month so I decided to have a dinner party and I invited some of my younger friends in their 30's. All of them iPad, iPhone, or Droid toting, digitally connected REALTOR colleagues.
We headed over to Blue Corn Cafe off Jefferson and I-25 for blue margaritas.
The wait staff had arranged a large, long table for all of us. when 90% of our group had arrived I had announced I had checked them in on Facebook Places as they arrived to I could inform the rest of the group.
Foursquare lets you check in and tagging people with GPS like check-in programs like Foursquare and now Facebook Places isn't a bad thing, right? Well... as I learned today (Sunday) it depends on who you talk to. Because it CAN be a huge violation of your Privacy.
Here's what happened.
I now have more than 1,000 Friends on Facebook. Combined with my friends and colleagues I invited to dinner on Friday, we probably shared more than 17,000 friends/contacts.
As my friends arrived, I checked them into Facebook places without their permission. Informing the rest of the incoming gang where we were and who showed up.
When I informed the group I had added them -- 5 out of the 11 were upset. One of my friends was completely torked. He had told his wife a small white lie. He told his better half that he had work to do.
She is an avid user of Facebook. (whoops, my bad! )
So he imagined his wife waiting at home for him at the front door -- holding the frying pan to beat him over the head immediately upon his arrival.
Another problem didn't surface until the next day. My post on Facebook Places showed up in more than 100 newsfeed websites. I never meant to broadcast this to a ton of websites. What the Hell was I thinking?
Ooops. Here I am reading about my dinner party and who I checked in as the arrived at the door. Why does this have to make the news feeds? I had no clue. Suffice it to say, I got a few upset phone calls this weekend. Fortunately, the newsfeeds dump stuff quickly and I personally wrote 11 of them asking them to please clear the news about my party which was now a train wreck that I wanted to forget.
Who's responsible for this problem? Marrk Zuckerberg, CEO and jerk at large from Facebook. Apparently he just can't seem to stay out of trouble. In April, Facebook announced the LIKE button feature which violated a lot of people's security by openly allowing anyone with the skills to hack your personal calendar online and access content you might not want others to have.
What's WRONG with Check In Networks like Foursquare and new Facebook Places? Plenty of you've been stalked on line by thieves.
My checking my friends into Facebook Places sends the clear message to a whole new crop of smart theft rings, I call; DiHeads ( Digital Housebreakers with Droids or DHD's )
One of my colleagues told me this is a real problem and he showed me a website, PleaseRobMe showed the darker side of Check in Websites. I invite you to click and visit that site. If you use Twitter, Facebook or Foursquare -- this will scare the living daylights out of you. And it needs to wake all of us up -- because we have to be careful with what we do online.
Because thieves will watch you and wait for you to leave your home. The process might take weeks or months of stalking. But one day, you go home and you learn sometimes too late, that you need to be more careful with what you post online.
Below is the video on YouTube that shows you how to deactivate the Facebook Places and prevents people from ADDING or letting them Check you in, too.
Tsk. Tsk. I like Facebook.
But it seems that Facebook never really thinks alot about how their new products will affect personal security. Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook's founder/CEO) blindly spends millions of dollars in new products that can harm you.
They screwed up in April on the privacy issues. And now... here we go again.
Below is the YouTube Video that Facebook Places is now under your control.
Bart Wilson | As seen in Business Week
I help build successful REALTORS. One agent at a time.
Voyager International | Follow me on Twitter
I agree it is dangerous nowadays on social media pages....I went over to Bart's post and suggested for a feature....need to get the word out..
Hello everyone, thanks for coming in on this. I thought it was important to post. I don't necessarily think everyone knows where we live, however some do. Yes, Lynda it is for Facebook Places. In general, it's not a good idea to put your personal information on-line. I never use my home address but my business address and I don't do Tweet Meetups. No one in Redding does that (maybe a few). It's hard to consider all the possibilities. I doubt anything occurs until it does occur and then it will be too late for someone. Thsnks to Bart for sharing the possibilities.
Hello Lynda, yes it would be if you signed up for Places which is Facebook's answer to Foursquare. It all sounds like fun, actually and it is a shame we cannot just do fun things. However, Bart gives us a dififerent perspective and I thought we should all think about it. I've decided that I don't really have the time to do these things and also as Realtors, we have enough exposure to the random type of things that can happen from people planning harm to others. I try not think about life in this manner but we cannot be blind to it either. I always tell people where I am going and for what purpose and I never do Opens alone. Take care Lynda. I don't disagree with you at all!