As we move forward into a world of computers and online meeting places. Where chat rooms, Myspace, face book have become the new way of meeting people and even old friends. I honestly believe that it is a great place and a great way of meeting new and possibly running into old friends.Myspace has a great record of people tracking down old friends they have not seen in years. It also has been a great device used for meeting people online as well. I will not argue these facts. But I am not here to tell you all about the positive part of the whole online meeting sites.
There is a dark side! Yes there is. I am not talking about all that other stuff we hear in the news about stalkers rapist and pedophiles. Which we all should be aware that it is a major part of the dark side of being online. It is not always about the bad guys. Some terrible things happen to good people because the good people don’t think before they post things online that they should not.
Some people really don’t give much thought about the things they do online. People have been known to lose their jobs. Get blackmailed and even worse because they didn’t follow the 1 major rule everyone should follow. Don’t post what you don’t want the rest of the world to see!
Now let me set up a perfect example of what I am trying to say here. Let’s call this woman Jane. Now Jane is a sweet average young lady. Who really has not ever done anything wrong in her life. She is just like anyone else.
one day she comes across a social site. She looks around at some of the members profiles. She notices some of the profiles are pretty cool. She see’s people posting Pics of themselves with friends family. Party pictures. Pictures with the family pet and so on.
She also finds certain profiles of both men and women dressed sexy and being flirty. that’s really not a problem because if your on a social site and your looking too meet someone, you want to look as attractive as you can be obviously! It makes sense. All of it seems innocent enough. She also see’s that there are some people men and women posing with next to nothing on. Some women laying in their beds not naked but barely covered. She also see’s some of them men’s profiles just barely covering their man goods.
So Jane decides what the heck. I am going to create a profile. So Jane fills out her info like most of these sites require you to do. She also pulls out her camera and starts taking Pics of herself to put on her profile. After taking a few Pics of her smile to put on her profile. She posts the profile.
After her profile was complete. She let it go for a few weeks to see if anyone left any comments or and messages for her. She got a few hits and a few good comments but not like some of the other profiles she has seen. So She began to think maybe I should do some of those pics that some of the other women and men were doing. You know to try to look sexy. So she got out her cam dressed down to her bra and panties and started to snap pictures left and right. She then posted the pics on her profile and yes she started to get an overwhelming amounts of comments and messages. Good new right?
A few weeks pass by and she is really enjoying all that attention she is getting from the site. She is meeting men whom she is communicating with via Email and Instant messaging. She is also deciding on meeting some of these gentleman who she has been corresponding to recently. Everything could not be better.
She wakes up one morning and dose her morning routine. Takes a shower, hair makeup and heads off to her job. She gets into work and punches in and starts her daily routine. When her first break comes around she usually runs too the bathroom to freshen up. As she washed her hands she see’s something on the wall through the mirror.. She goes to the wall to investigate it. To her shock she realizes it’s a print out of one of her pics she took for that profile she posted on that social site. In shock and embarrassment she rips it down and wonders just how many people have seen it?
As the day goes by so far so good everything is just as normal as always. It’s lunch. So she goes out to her car to run to the local deli. On her windshield is a piece of paper. Thinking it was one of those flyer's she always gets advertising for that Chinese restaurant across the street. She removes it and goes to throw it out in her car garbage. She glances at it and notices that it is another one of those pics she took for that site again. Now she is starting to worry!
She suddenly lost her appetite and went back into her work and goes to sit in the employees lunchroom. She sits there and wonders who is doing this to her and why? After awhile she looks up at the employee bulletin board and again another one of her pics was pinned up for the whole world to see!
By this time she was extremely upset and did not know where to go to for help. She also knew by this time almost everyone at work has seen the pics and everyone is talking about them. She even had a bigger concern her son age 17 also worked part time as a bag boy in the evenings. What if he see’s these pics? Her mom shops here and her friends and relatives as well.
And to confirm her suspicions she gets a call from the store manager to go to his office and she knows why and now she has to sit there and answer some very hard and extremely awkward questions about the pics. She didn’t lose her job and the store manager had to send out a memo to all employees about posting non company information on any company property walls.
For weeks people were talking all about it and even her son found out about it and had to quit because the other employees picked on him about his whore mother. She had to quit as well. Even without finding another job which got her into a pickle because she had no other income.
Then the prank calls started to come in of men breathing heavy or asking her out thinking she was an easy score. Her life was turned inside and out. It got so bad for her she had to move out of town because everyone knew of the pictures she posted on that site. How could they not? they were posted everywhere and the ones who didn’t see them on the walls at work were sharing them with each other in emails and posting the pics on other sites for everyone to see. She became the blunt of every cruel joke and every local perverts target. Her life was completely ruined by a few bra and panties pics posted on a social website.
Later it was found out that 2 of the employees while surfing the net and looking for local people to connect too, came across her profile. they knew her and thought it would be funny to print her pictures out and post them all over work. The 2 gentleman involved were fired shortly after. But the woman’s life was still ruined. A sad joke if you ask me. But it all could have been avoided completely if Jane used some common sense to begin with!
This was actually a true story. It happened 5 yrs ago to someone a few towns over from me.
With that said! I want to go through a few simple rules that everyone should follow. Now these rules just don’t pertain to JUST the ladies. These rules apply to everyone even the Men!
Rule #1 never post any information that you don’t want anyone else to know about you! Don’t post information to anyone or on a site that you wouldn’t want your friends or family or children to know!
Rule #2 never post pictures of yourself in a manner you do not wish for your friends, family, children or co workers to see.
Rule #3 Never complain about your work, job or boss online. People have lost their jobs because of this!
Rule #4 never give out any personal information EVER online! Phone numbers, street address, where you work and where you hang out! Stalkers and online bullies use this information to attack you in many forms.
Rule #5 always follow rules #1 to #4!!!!!
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