It may seem like an obvious statement: be careful what you say. It's easy to forget this real world adage exists on the internet. We have no idea who's out there who could be reading our posts, blogs, and personal information. It seems like an anonymous place to post, to rant about our gripes or thoughts, let friends read how we are and how we feel, or let other professionals or colleagues see what we have to say.
It may seem like an obvious statement: be careful what you say. It’s easy to forget this real world adage exists on the internet. We have no idea who’s out there who could be reading our posts, blogs, and personal information. It seems like an anonymous place to post, to rant about our gripes or thoughts, let friends read how we are and how we feel, or let other professionals or colleagues see what we have to say.
This is a mistake that several students at Northern Kentucky University made. In November of 2005, a group of students at that university were found in violation of their university’s code of conduct as a result of posts they made to their Facebook page. The students were fined $50, put on a year of probation on campus, and were forced to take classes on the dangers of binge drinking because of photos they posted to their blog that showed the keg they snuck into their dorm room for a party.
Similar busts have happened at college campuses across the country. Some school administrators and RAs are now making browsing popular blog sites part of their daily routine for finding prohibited student activities. Students are finding out that they can get in real-world trouble for posts and photos that they put online.
Students and who blog or post professionally should be aware of their online identity. Your entries, the things you say, the information you let slip forms an image of you to others. Stalkers could learn too much about your actual location, schedule, and life, while identity thieves can also use this information to commit fraud. Current or future employers can form negative opinions based on what you write online which can prevent you from being hired. It is extremely important when keeping a blog to remember that it is available to more than just friends and the people you know. So you need to be careful what you put out there in regards of personal information or exploits. Here are some examples of information you shouldn’t put online and the reasons why:
Misspelled Entries and inappropriate content.
Poor grammar and incorrectly spelled words might seem like no big deal on blogs due to their informal nature, but really, how long does it take to spell check your work before you upload it? Sloppy posts on a blog can give people to form a negative perception about you and how seriously you take your school work.
Consider the effect that pictures and posts of negative behavior like underage drinking would have if they were viewed by your parents, your professors, or your potential employers. Would you think twice about posting a picture of yourself in a racy pose if your mother was reading your blog? The chance of those people viewing your blog is not nearly as unlikely as you might think. Your personal blog can be found sometimes by simply Googling for your name.
Too Many Personal Details.
Putting too much personal information on your blog can definitely be a bad thing. Blogs with plenty of details about your personal life and especially lots of pictures of yourself can make you a prime targets for unscrupulous identity theft. As creepy as it is, the idea of someone out there passing themselves off as someone else using pictures they got off a blog is fairly common.
Posting your daily schedules.
While posting the classes you’re taking and the times and places you’ll be each day seems like a good way to let friends know where you’ll be, it can also make you vulnerable to physical harm, letting potential stalkers or sexual predators know exactly where you’re going to be.
Comments criticizing your employer.
Plenty of bloggers have been busted for speaking out against their company in their blogs. While it may not be fair, stories about what really goes on where you work, while entertaining, are sometimes bad choices to be immortalized as blog entries. It’s commonplace for employers today to check out the blogs of people who apply for jobs, and if they see that you weren’t afraid to say all kinds of unsavory things about the last place you worked, they’re going to be hesitant to hire you. After all, how would they know you wouldn’t do the same thing to them?
The issue at hand is what’s called comes back to the idea of your online identity and is called ‘self-presentation’. Every blogger has this persona that they put forth into their online space. This can be as truthful or as deceptive as you want it to be. For some, this persona is limited to a nickname they use online, but for others, their online persona can be filled with personal information like their real name, their date of birth, their phone number, and a myriad of other details about themselves. On sites like Facebook and Myspace, people are more likely to offer up personal information since because that’s how social networking sites link you to other people.
So the next question is, how do we protect ourselves? Many people still want to keep a blog where they post personal information or fun exploits sans censure. So here are some tips to help keep up blog boundaries:
Keep a separate blog for school and personal life.
Create a new blog just for your class blogging, and keep your personal life in a separate blog. Make sure there’s no overlap between the two - try to avoid linking from one blog to the other to make sure that the correct audience is reading the blog that you want them to.
Blog anonymously.
Blogging under a pseudonym can prevent people from matching up all the information on your blog with a real-life person. It can protect your real-life identity from the things you post about online.
Blog without using identifying details.
Obviously, this one can be a tough one to maintain on a personal blog. It’s better suited to blogging in a classroom setting. All you have to do is post and respond without saying too much about yourself.
Make your blog friends-only.
Many blogs have the built-in ability to be only viewed by “friends” of the author - you determine who these people are in the control panel page for your blog. By specifying the people who are able to read the content of your blog, and by limiting it to friends only, you can easily prevent the wrong people from reading your personal information.
Remove yourself from Google.
If you really don’t want your personal blog being found by strangers, one of the best things you can do is prevent it from coming up in a Google search. However, it requires a bit of technical expertise. First of all, if your blog already comes up in a Google search, you can ask them to remove it. Once your blog is removed from Google, or if it was never on Google in the first place, follow these instructions to create a text file you can place in your blog’s root directory to prevent Google from ever indexing it in the future.
Keeping these tips in mind will go a long way to making your blogging an enriching experience as well as a safe one. Remember to be careful with personal information and always bear in mind that the things you post online can be read by anyone. It’s important to protect your integrity and identity online in this new frontier of educational blogging.