After the recent controversy of suspended and dismissed
IVCC volleyball players over content on a social networking Web site, a very
important question lingers in the horizon for many: Should one be held
accountable in their professional life for their online activities?
The answer, whether yes, no or a mixture of both in a fuzzy
grey area, obviously cannot be solved here, but one thing is for sure: once a
digital footprint is out on the Internet, there may be no way to delete it.
What does this mean? It means that everyone should be leery
when they post anything on any Web site, whether it is pictures, jokes or
anything of a personal nature. Even with privacy settings, there is no 100
percent guarantee that information cannot be found by others, especially if
someone is specifically looking for it and their knowledge in computers is
higher than yours.
Any social network site can be hacked, whether it is Facebook,
MySpace, Friendster or something as seemingly harmless as Classmates.com.
Not to mention that when a picture is put online it may never
disappear even when deleted by the owner. This is because it can never be
certain how many subsequent copies exist because of the copying and pasting that
could have occurred while being posted. Once information is out there, it is
virtually lost in the black hole that is the World Wide Web.
In the past year alone, we as a society have witnessed
numerous people in the public eye that have been destroyed by something from
their past being exposed on the internet. Why risk something that may hurt you
later in life?
It's time to start thinking about the future and not the
impulsive present. Something that may seem harmless, and even funny, now may
come back to bite you in the butt.
Use discretion when posting personal information and pictures
on the internet and think to yourself, "how will this affect me if my boss,
parent, spouse or significant other saw this information?" If the effects would
be negative, it's better to stay on the side of caution and just keep your
private information just that — private.