Facebook

Just to document the press's continuing fascination that people are indeed monitoring Facebook, Bebo etc, and that despite this, other people are still stupid enough to leave confidential information there, this piece from the Indy ...

"Just ask the 27 workers at the Automobile Club of Southern California fired for messages about colleagues on their MySpace sites; the Florida sheriff's deputy whose MySpace page revealed his heavy drinking and fascination with female breasts – and swiftly found himself handing in his badge; the Argos worker in Wokingham fired for saying on Facebook that working at the firm was "shit"; the Las Vegas teacher at a Catholic school fired after he declared himself gay on his MySpace page; the staff of an Ottawa grocery chain fired for their "negative comments" on Facebook; the 19 Northampton police officers investigated for Facebook comments; and Kevin Colvin, an intern at Anglo Irish Bank, who told his employers he had a family emergency, but whose Facebook page revealed he had, in reality, been cavorting in drag at a Hallowe'en party."

However the piece does have a new(ish) point, that worries about social network sites may shift from the obvious paedophiles, stalkers and ID thieves t more "civil" observers:

"That something as ubiquitous as social network sites (they have 13.7 million UK users) are exploited by paedophiles and other serious criminals is not surprising. Happily, the numbers affected are small. But the use of personal page content in civil disputes, divorces, employment and legal actions will affect far more of the millions now innocently sharing their thoughts and intimate moments with the online world. "

Pangloss is, as usual, almost finished an article on all this :) Send donations of spare time to allow her to complete it!!

Ps while we're at it, two interesting recent comments on the ongoing facebook/SCrabulous affair - Jonathan Zittrain here and the irrepressible Daithi Mac Sithigh here.