Facebook Security: Must you share EVERYTHING?

This morning, my husband and I were perusing the newspaper over our usual cup of coffee – I was reading the Arkansas section and he was glancing through the National portion.  I tend to scan the obituaries first (I know, I have become my grandmother) and Clay typically hits the sideline with all the short articles of the goings on around the world.  It didn’t take long for him to sigh in frustration over what he was reading, so of course, I had to take a look over his shoulder.

The article told the unfortunate tale of a short-sighted 20 year old hunter who couldn’t restrain himself from bragging about his latest “kills” which included 1 too many deer and 3 too many geese.  Not only did he boast about his hunting skills, but he posted pictures of his trophies, that were noticed by law abiding Facebook “friends”, who then notified the authorities.

Immediately, I think what an idiot!  Kind of reminds me of the stupid criminal videos you see every once in a while on TV.  You know what I am talking about, the goof ball who decides to rob a convenient store of their lottery tickets while wearing his name tag from work proudly displayed on his uniform.  Not that I am heralding criminal behavior, but it just goes to show you how stupid people can be….not just for breaking the law, but for doing it so poorly!  (tongue in cheek of course)

The point of this is to remind people that while we all enjoy Facebook for a variety of reasons, it isn’t necessary to reveal to the World Wide Web every single thing you are doing!  Just like it wasn’t terribly brilliant to boast about illegal hunting practices with picture evidence, it wouldn’t make sense to post on Facebook your holiday plans and where all you will be travelling.  For obvious reasons, that would only let your “friends” know exactly how much time they have to ransack your house and play reverse-Santa.  Besides, do you REALLY think that everyone cares about how you spend every single moment of every day?  Let’s try and keep our postings to informative tidbits, interesting historical facts or even uplifting quotes from Gandhi or Mother Teresa.

Oh, and by the way….my husband was most frustrated about the hunter getting in trouble for his over the limit Geese picture.  Why? Well, do the math.  There were 3 friends in the photo and 12 Canada geese pictures with them, and the limit was 3 geese per person.  Immediately, one might think each hunter shot one extra than they were supposed to.  But wait, who took the picture?  Looks like the braggadocios Facebook hunter might get out of that one.