For some time now, my pastor has been making comments about potential problems with social websites such as Facebook.com and mySpace.com; being a software engineer at IBM helps to gives him a little creditability in this subject. He discussed the rising issue of online predators who prey on unsuspecting victims and now school and businesses that dig for information on potential candidates for enrollment or jobs. What it is important to remember is that it is not the site themselves that create the danger; instead it is the naive users who willingly put information about themselves that could later damage their character down the line.

For instance, my pastor was easily able to look-up information about several church members who had profiles on myspace.com. Among the few he found, where some very despairingly comments, pictures and phrases on profile pages of members and children of members of the church. It seems that many people, mostly teens and college-age young adults seem to believe that posting such information would only be shared among friends or other users of the site themselves thought of as their peers. Instead, for myspace.com at least, anyone can view the profile and begin making assumptions about a person's character based on what they read of see.

Tonight, NBC had a report on Facebook.com. A young guy who had a facebook.com profile got caught in the buff by a potential employer. During the report he was so embarrassed he stumbled through his words trying to describe that his profile had a nude picture of himself during a party.

Originally the site had restricted access to only people with valid college email addresses. Even with that you were blocked from freely browsing profiles of the people in your social network defined by the area you lived in and the school you attended. Now it has branched out to high schools and most recently employer email addresses. This now opens the door for employers to browse profiles for some of the same people who may have had a picture of themselves taking a keg stand, caught naked or some other pose they would rather not have their future boss know about, if that is even a possibility after it is made known to an employer. It goes beyond just pictures, or profanity however, it could be the groups you are a part of or the friends you keep. Maybe, your music interests could be a knock. Far be it from an employer or your pastor to find out you have been listening to John Tesh!

Please don't mistake my message here. I am not condemning the actions of those who like to display that they like to party or are very open about where they stand politically or socially. I have a facebook.com profile myself. It is that you should use caution and intelligence about what you post and who will be looking at it. If you fell for the guise that site like myspace.com and facebook.com would only be viewed by your peers so therefore you could just post whatever you wanted without conscience then this message is for you. Remember it only takes a person with the correct school email address to pick through the profiles of the unsuspecting, so don't think that companies won't hire people with that type of access to do just that.

In the end this was the point my pastor was trying to drive home during his weekly pastoral comments. The sites themselves do not bring danger to their users; potentially it is the users who bring it upon themselves. There is nothing wrong with having a profile on myspace.com or facebook.com. Many friendships have and can be made through sites like these and you may be able to find people who share similar interests with you. However, you should use some common sense about the information you share about yourself and the comment you allow to be posted on your profile. Don't fool yourself about who can reach that information either.