“The Facebook Freaky Line,” Robert Scoble, Scobleizer.com. This is worth looking at because Facebook’s “frictionless sharing” can have a significant impact on the security and public image of religious workers who are involved in missions, charity, microenterprise, business, education, or issue work (such as trafficking, etc). For some in the world frictionless sharing makes sharing ever so much easier. For others, who need parts of their life to be private, it’s going to be a difficult challenge to weigh. The further across the “restricted access/sensitive work” line that you are, the more careful you’re going to have to be about these kinds of privacy controls.
For me, I’m not turning frictionless sharing on, generally. I want to know precisely what I’m sharing, and when. But I’m keeping my Facebook page—for now, at any rate.
Mission agencies: you need to be thinking about their social networking policies in light of this move!
Colleges and Missionary Training Schools: you need to have a course on social networking websites and issues related to them!
Churches: if you’re connected to missionaries working in sensitive places, be careful what you share online that can be easily reproduced!
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I am definitely NOT turning on the frictionless sharing feature. I am also very careful with what Facebook applications I connect to. Lately there have been a few news services that ask you to load their application if you click on a news story from Facebook. I simply don’t load the application and don’t visit that news service from Facebook, their loss…
If you want something private, don’t put it online. Facebook is notorious for changing their rules and what might be private today might not be tomorrow.
I don’t think you need to be afraid, but you need to be wise…