How Safe Are You on the Internet...?

How confident are you that the Internet is a safe place?  Very confident?  Somewhat?  Not at all?  If you chose not at all, you're probably right.  It never occurred to me until just recently, what a dangerous place the Internet is.  And now, as much as we think we are protecting ourselves, we have absolutely no protection at all.  Zero.  Nada.  Zilch.  None.  It's the wide-open wild, wild West, and we have very little say in how our personal information, photographs, children, pets, recipes, et al, are disseminated on the Internet.  The moment we post that first comment or photograph on Facebook, we're toast.  And we take our whole 450 friends, family and pets with us.  Toast.  The Internet is like Russian Matryoshka dolls. Inside one person's profile is another, and another and another, ad infinitum.  And they carry on exponentially, depending on how many friends your friends' friends' friends friends' friends have, up to multiples of thousands and even millions.

Occasionally I like to read the comments posted on the articles on the CNN website.  They're a hoot.  There are some extremely intelligent people out there, well-read and knowledgeable.  And then there are others who ... are not.  In fact. it's actually astonishing how many folks out there have little or no knowledge of world affairs, current events, history, geography, cultures of other countries, or even what is going on in their own back yards.  Where do these people spend their time -- on the dark side of the moon?  In the 21st Century when knowledge is available instantly, how can folks be so ill-informed?  It boggles the mind.  Perhaps it is just a case of not wanting to be informed.  Ignorance is bliss.  I don't know...

The other day a commenter logged onto the CNN website and was posting really vile racist comments. He hated anyone who wasn't white, and he posted every horrible racial slur you could imagine ~~ and some I haven't even heard.  He was disgusting.  The stupid man was posting with his Facebook account.  All anyone had to do was click on his profile, and it went straight to his Facebook, which was public.  He had 482 friends, many of whom were non-white.  Many!  So, here was this stupid man, in a public forum, posting racist comments about the very people with whom he was friends on Facebook.  But the worst part of it was, he also had pictures of his children, in their bathing suits, for anyone in the entire world to click on, with one click.  And included in his Facebook account was his place of business and where he lived.  It would have taken a predator no time at all to find that man's little girls, or at the very least, to copy their photographs.  And not only that, but his 482 friends were exposed to the Internet on the CNN website, and their friends, and their friends, and their friends and their friends...

Okay, perhaps I am being over-reactive, but I don't think so.  We should at least have a say in what information we want to have shared with the world.  Do we really want a photograph of our nine-year old child, in her bathing suit, easily accessible on the CNN comment board?  I don't think so.  I logged on and commented to the silly man gentleman that perhaps he should change his privacy settings to private before he posts controversial and provocative comments on a world-wide website.  I told him I am a Mom, and I was just trying to give him some friendly advice.  Well, long story short, that was a mistake.  And he's still posting his ranting, racist comments, and his Facebook page is still open to the whole world.  I did notice that in the last 24 hours his list of friends had gone from 482 to 450. Quelle surprise! But the pictures of his beautiful little daughter are still there for thousands millions of people's viewing pleasure.  You can't teach stupid.

We cannot change the world, and yes, it can be a dangerous place.  But we can change how we protect ourselves from this new reality known as globalization and the world-wide web.