Facebook, the new double-cross
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009
Friday the 13th has never had a good rap. In my recent experience, Sunday the 13th is no better. That’s the day I learned—thankfully, from a dear friend—that someone had hacked my Facebook account, sending to all of my named Facebook friends a Facebook email announcement that went something like this: “I’ve downloaded sexually explicit photos of myself for you to view.” And then there was the requisite link….
The joke is on me, apparently. As recently as last week, I promoted Facebook as a business networking tool to clients. At my Boomer age, I’ve even been teased about being a part of Facebook by younger Facebook devotees. I’ve debated the virtues of Facebook with associates who refused to participate on Facebook…otherwise sophisticated Internet operators who resolutely resisted. They said they had their reasons.
Now I am a believer…not in Facebook, but in the damage internet networking can net.
For the record, I did not post explicit photos of myself for anyone to view. In fact, and this may be too much information, I don’t have explicit photos of myself to post in case the aberrant urge possessed me. As explicitly as I can possibly elicit the words: IT AIN’T SO.
Moreover, I don’t have the carbon footprint big enough to warrant anyone hacking into my Facebook account. I just do what I do…below the radar. I’m no Ashton. I’m no Britney. I’m no news.
What, was it only last week that I proclaimed to a willing listener that I felt compassion for a wife married to a golf swinger? The shock of having so much private detail consume Internet bandwidth has to be brutal on her, the unwitting victim in a drama played out on every conceivable medium.
I’ve joked privately that I have no life outside of my work. My friend that alerted me to the false Facebook invitation to link to my explicit photos laughed with me. He and I, he said, are the only two people on earth checking their emails on a Sunday from our office desks during a Broncos game. In truth, it’s not that my dear friend has no life, nor is it true that I have no life. It’s just that it’s my life and nobody else’s business.
So take that, Facebook. You’re off my radar. It may be true that if it happens in Vegas, it stays on Facebook. But if it happens in my life, it won’t be there.