BeanyThinks

An excerpt from a slate.com article entitled It’s Not All Facebook’s Fault:

“Mark Zuckerberg would never acknowledge this, but I think it will ultimately benefit both his site and its users if we adjusted our expectations about “privacy” there. You should approach Facebook as cautiously as you would approach your open bedroom window. However restrictive your privacy controls, you should imagine that everything that you post on Facebook will be available for public consumption forever. If you follow this simple rule, you’ll never be blindsided.

Yes, anticipating the worst-case scenario of everything is kind of paranoid and more than a little frustrating. All you wanted to do was share pictures of your birthday dinner with a few friends—should you really have to think three times about the long-term implications of something so small?

Yes, you should. Facebook is a powerful tool, and the reason that so many people slip up on the site is that we fail to appreciate its power. It’s time we all started taking it a bit more seriously. Sharing is fun. But if you don’t plan on sharing with everyone, don’t bother.”

- Farhad Manjoo, Slate.com