A Question of Netiquette...

Rory Cellan-Jones poses a simple question:

How careful should we be about the way we express ourselves and how much we give away?

What's public and what's private on the web? (BBC dot.life blog)

The fundamental issue he is addressing is, should what we saying as an individual have an affect on our role as an employee? Since Rory is a BBC technology correspondent who is employed by the BBC (in effect, paid for by UK taxpayers), then if he comments about technology in a private capacity his private writings must have a bearing on his public role.

Luckily Rory is intelligent enough to realise this.

The real crux of Rory’s article is really about our online privacy. If we really wish to protect our privacy on-line then we would not use the internet at all. Of course, even that is not a real safeguard as we cannot know what information about us is made available on-line by other entities - organisations, governments, and individuals. Nor can we easily remove this information. Assuming we use the internet - and of you are reading this, then that is a fairly safe assumption (unless you are looking over someone’s shoulder) - then it is hard to protect our digital footprint. It is very hard to retract anything we’ve ever said on-line.

To illustrate the dangers of using a web site like Facebook is the case of Becky Spraggs. Her photo was lifted from her profile page and used on a porn site. There are also incidents of companies attempting to hack Facebook to gain its users' personal information.

People should also note that current and potential employers may check your Facebook account. Or their Bebo, MySpace, Twitter, etc., accounts. Posting too much personal information could also leave people open to cyber stalking.

As a basic minimum it makes sense to use privacy settings on all web sites to limit access to your profile and posts. If you must post controversial things, then do so under a pseudonym. Wherever possible avoid using your real date of birth, name, and address.