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Kevin Jacoby

Everyone Sees You on Facebook: Act Accordingly

Written by Kevin Jacoby
1/22/2013 80 comments
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There is a service you can now retain to help you with your anonymous social network stalking. The company, once contracted, will assume a cover identity; friend, follow, or otherwise connect with your desired target; and then publish a daily report regarding your mark and his or her Internet-enabled comings and goings.

Now, obviously this concept was first conceived, and quickly used, by a jilted adolescent lothario stalking his ex-girlfriend.

Friday, 1pm: Subject tweeted regarding her alleged kanoodling in cafeteria with varsity quarterback.

But business is a dog-eat-dog affair, and I imagine it took mere seconds for this service to transcend the realm of high school romance and get its MBA from Wharton.

I am personally acquainted with at least one executive (now former-executive) who somehow missed the memo stating that the Internet: a) can be seen by everyone; and b) never ever forgets. And this gentleman -- we’ll call him Larry -- singlehandedly eviscerated his career at a certain telecom giant via a careless and ill-advised bout of Facebooking after cocktails one evening.

Larry forgot the cardinal rule of social media: Just because you’re wearing a t-shirt and jeans, are three sheets to the wind, and hidden in the back of some dive bar while on business in Chicago, does not mean you can throw off the yoke of your three-piece pinstripe and loafers to embark on a tell-all, pictorial, autobiographical extravaganza via Facebook and expect to have a career in the morning.

I’ll say it again: The Internet never forgets. And no matter how you configure those all-but-useless privacy controls, someone will see you. And someone will be angry. I consider social media to be a great and powerful tool. But as the face of Rain Computers, I understand all too well that a simple, innocent, alcohol-induced slip of the tongue could affect countless people in my organization, including staff, investors, partners, and even customers. Listen, I can party with the best of 'em. I just make sure that, if I'm going to lose a bit of self-control one evening, it’s lost in the presence of trusted friends -- friends who don’t let friends drink and tweet.

There is a price to pay for the ease with which we can, in this time of 24/7 publicity, become a household name overnight. And that price is one of ever-vigilant decorum.

So by all means, go out, have a few cocktails, sample the local culture. Just remember that posting pictures on Facebook of your debauchery might just have a deleterious effect on the meeting you have the next morning to discuss billions in distribution with Walmart. And act accordingly.

— Kevin Jacoby is CEO of Rain Computers, which specializes in high-performance solutions for audio and visual production.

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Anand Y
IQ Crew
Tuesday January 29, 2013 12:53:22 PM
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Can you do this with Facebook messages and posts?

@StaceyE, I dont you think can check the IP address with Facebook but yes Facebook team will know about all the details. Since you had already  contacted them you could have requested them to share the IP address details too.

StaceyE
IQ Crew
Tuesday January 29, 2013 8:37:27 AM
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@jWallace

Her "true" friends let her know of the situation, but she found out that day who the true ones were. 

StaceyE
IQ Crew
Tuesday January 29, 2013 8:30:07 AM
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Can you do this with Facebook messages and posts? I know you can see the log in history in the account settings, but it only showed the city and estimated location of the log ins to the account. Since the person lived a block away from us, it looked the same through Facebook. I would love to know how to check the IP address with Facebook if there is a way...just in case there is another situation like this. Our incident was a little over two years ago.

slfisher
Thinkernetter
Tuesday January 29, 2013 12:22:34 AM
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like Mitch, I basically assume everything I put on social media is public. Particularly since I've run for political office for the 'off' party in a very unpopulated state. But even so, I run into situations like, I used to belong to another more private online community using a pseudonym, and do I want those people to know I'm me? Or, what will people with whom I didn't get along on another private network do to me in Facebook or Twitter?

jwallace
IQ Crew
Monday January 28, 2013 11:24:05 PM
no ratings

With brand pages posts having impressions on approx 3% of its "fanbase", I'm wondering when facebook insight will let you know everyone's newsfeed the post was  featured on. 

as for personal pages, you once were able to gauge by likes and comments, however that seems to no longer be the case. 

I'm hoping for close approximation of who may have seen your posts in numbers, regions (physical location) etc acroos your social graph. some key elements for marketers. 

sadly, I can't tell you how many 'play' clicks I get for each music video I share and I would like to know.

jwallace
IQ Crew
Monday January 28, 2013 11:16:20 PM
no ratings

I was recently over a celebrity's new home over the Christmas holidays and I took a pic of their kitchen because I loved it so much (love viking ranges and pot hanger/racks).. consequently, the celebrity was in the photo and I didn't think to crop him out. needless to say, a publicist friend "scolded" me re: posting interior house pics people's homes and to only discuss on the social IF the event was in a public place and not their private residence. 

the social media publicist me, who believes visibility has value, disagrees. 

jwallace
IQ Crew
Monday January 28, 2013 11:09:23 PM
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@StaceyE

"(because she had only used one person's PC other than ours, to access the account) there was nothing we could do to prove who it was."

so they unfriended her new account because of messages from her old one? what would you do in that situation other than post on the new one addressing the issue and tagging the old one.. I'm assuming she also connected with the same close friends she was connected with on the old..

Anand Y
IQ Crew
Sunday January 27, 2013 9:50:18 PM
no ratings

Although we had a very good idea who had done it (because she had only used one person's PC other than ours, to access the account) there was nothing we could do to prove who it was.

@StaceyE, was this person using the same IP address as yours ? If not then you can easily identify the source of the message by identifying the IP address from where the message was originated.

PaulS
IQ Crew
Sunday January 27, 2013 7:10:22 PM
no ratings

Great Post Kevin.

I try and tell my daughters this alot hoping it will sink in one day.

With the job market being as competitive as it is you can be weeded out quickly if you dont watch what you post.

robjvargas
IQ Crew
Sunday January 27, 2013 1:23:49 PM
no ratings

As I stated in my reply to Kim's first post on this topic, I don't think that that private has changed.

A lot of the things that get people in trouble now, they weren't private in the first place.  If you walked up to your employer and invited them to see you do this stuff before, it would still have been trouble.

Certainly, social networking has vastly changed the avilability of such moments to people we didn't intend to ever know about such activities.  But the activities, with some exceptions, aren't any more embarrassing now than then.

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