PRIVACY AND NEW MEDIA !

          Privacy is something that we all think we have, but in reality we really don't. When you go online, nothing is private. Everything you do is basically being watched. You may post something on Facebook about someone else who isn't a "friend" and think they will never see it, but guess again because in one way or another, that person has some pretty good chances of seeing it. Once you upload a picture to the internet, you have no choice on where it goes. Some pictures you upload can be moved to another site and before you know it, it could be everywhere. Some people really don't recognize the consequences that this could lead to, and some can be pretty serious. 


           When you upload something online, it's on there forever. This could ruin a lot of future plans in your life. A picture of you at a party, with people drinking in the background, even if YOUR NOT drinking, could lead to job loss, or even not being able to obtain a job. Some things online could also lead to the police being involved. For instance, you upload a status/picture of bullying someone. People comment to make fun, and laugh at it, and when one person stands up and says its wrong, you "delete it." You may think it's deleted, but thats an assumption. People could have moved it to another place, and when that person sees how they are being treated or "made fun of" they can go to the school to find the person who uploaded the picture/status. It is bullying and bullying is NOT tolerated therefore, serious consequences would be faced and possibly even police involvement. 


          As a teenager, you may think that what you upload now will never be seen again, but in reality you may want to rethink that. Everything uploaded onto the internet can be seen again.  It's important to be careful and think about what your posting on the internet because you don't want things like "drunk" pictures to come back in the future and ruin your chances of getting a job. This link leads to an article of a teacher getting fired for having a picture on Facebook involving alcohol. Is it really that wrong for teachers to drink alcohol outside of school ? or to have a Facebook page with privacy settings that their students would not be able to see ? I feel in my opinion there is nothing wrong with that. Lets see what you think: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/02/06/sunday/main7323148.shtml?tag=stack

           There are also many really important issues that surround privacy and the internet. Not only when you post something online can you be tracked, but even if you shop online or prescribe to a magazine, your personal information is out there. The information that you give out for online shopping can be given to other companies, even if the privacy policy states that it can't be. It is important to read over the privacy policy before joining any site. If you decide that you want to join and be at risk for your information being given out, thats your choice. You make that decision, then you also face the consequences that come with it. 

          We all have those stories or secrets that we keep to ourselves and don't want others to find out. We either keep them to ourselves, or tell our best friend who we trust we anything. Sometimes, however, those secrets get released and almost always end up being posted on the internet. You see that on Facebook or somewhere else on the internet and basically have a huge freakout because that one secret that you told your best friend is now something that everyone can see. You might have thought it was a secret and you had the privacy to that secret but, now its known that nothings private. People can find out things about you that you may not have even known about yourself. Privacy is a huge problem because we know longer have the privacy that we wished we had. REMEMBER to think before accepting or joining anything and to make decisions that won't hurt you in the future!