Smokescreen

Jo's not the first person who's been caught out for what they posted online. Recently, a 16-year-old was fired from her job for saying that it was "boring" on a friend's wall. A prisoner was found updating his Facebook page from inside prison, which led to lots of questions about how he got online! And in Devon, when a Facebook event advertised an 'all night party', the police showed up with a helicopter and a riot van to break up fifteen mates having a quiet barbecue in the back garden.

We still don't have established rules or guidelines about how schools, companies, and the police should use any information they find out about people online - so it's not surprising these things happen. In the US, a third of companies surveyed said they haven't hired someone because of 'provocative or inappropriate photographs' they discovered on sites like Facebook and MySpace.

Unwanted Publicity

Facebook announces changes you make to your relationship status in the newsfeed: great when you want to tell everyone you've just started going out, but not so much fun when Facebook tells your entire school you've broken up (as Prince Harry could tell you!). And even if you don't get in trouble immediately, photos and posts you make on Facebook could be embarassing later. All those mushy messages to your ex stay on their profile even after you've broken up.

The best thing to do is assume that everything you post on the internet is going to be there for a long, long time, and could be made public.

Why? Well, even if you do post photos privately to your friends, or delete them, they might not stay that way, since 'secure' data is lost all the time (and deleted data is often not actually deleted). Banks have sent out private data by accident, people's private MySpace photos have been hacked and then posted for everyone to see; even the government loses CDs, laptops with high-security information, and USB sticks down the pub!

We aren't saying that you should stop using the internet - no-one's going to do that. But you should always remember that many websites aren't as interested in your privacy and security as they say they are!

Faking It

Altering images using Photoshop has a long and notorious history. It's not just students and pranksters, either! Many journalists have tried to pass off photoshopped photos as real, and been caught out by eagle-eyed readers. Here are some famous photoshop fakes: can you tell they've been altered?

Links

• 10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Know
• Two Belgian students were given zero for their exams after the university found conversations on Facebook where they talked about cheating
• Boston Police using Twitter and Facebook to Track Down Bike Thieves
• Dozens of girls were suspended from a C of E school for setting up a defamatory Facebook site about a teacher

Play Mission 6 again now!