Back in September I wrote a post outlining some of the most common and dangerous security vulnerabilities that frequently occur with regard to social media. Hopefully many of you were able to make adjustments and help keep yourselves and your loved ones safe. However, in light of new events I thought it might be important to re-visit the issue with an extra suggestion. According to documents produced in a new lawsuit, the Department of Homeland Security has been friending people on Facebook to investigate them on a wide number of issues. These DHS agents, presumably using fake names and pictures, have friended people without any sort of validation of their suspicion – similar to searching someone’s house or car without a warrant.
Though this may be disturbing, at this point we should not be surprised. Social media technologies have saturated our existence and serve as repositories for volunteering data about who we are. Though the benefits can be plentiful, such as reconnecting with old friends and simplifying the event planning process, we need to pause for thought. No longer is the only profile something that you can afford to joke around with. It can and will be accessed by people whose opinion of you makes a difference.
Perhaps no one has more at risk than our graduating high school seniors. In fact, many college admissions guides now include sections on how to bring your social media pages up to speed. One in particular gave a compelling piece of advice that stuck with me. Among other things it said that your “online persona” should be totally in line with the person presented in your college applications. No pictures, quotes, or public information should be present that will conflict with your image as a pristine candidate. I think the reason that this perspective was so interesting was that it brought in the notion of creating a persona – much like you do in a job interview setting – to further sell yourself. Social media as many of us know it is quite the opposite, and people try and be as real as possible, including the drug and alcohol use, poorly written biographies, and offensive status updates.
Changing our mindset to consider the idea of the “online persona” will be a necessary step in the evolution of information and communication technologies. As our world continues to get more and more virtual, I predict that the importance of virtual existence will only increase with time. You must take the appropriate steps to ensure that you aren’t selling yourself short of the best opportunities out there.
So, for my last simple tip: pretend that everything you share on “personal” social media sites has to also appear on “professional” social media such as LinkedIn. You rarely (or never) hear about people getting “busted” for content on LinkedIn, which is not surprising. Given the appropriate context, people know how to act professionally. The perception that what is said has consequences and that important people for one’s future will be reading makes us pretty successful in filtering ourselves. So take that concept and run with it! We can no longer stop people from gaining access – both legally and illegally – to our data, so we may as well make sure they have nothing incriminating to find.