Sunday, April 13, 2008

Are you careful?


I'm not concerned so much about googling someone, I'm more concerned about people googling me. But I do believe that my Internet interactions are as transparent as can be...If I were to suddenly run for office and my Internet dealings were uncovered, I'd be okay. I do attempt to write with an awareness of my audience.

But I must say, I worry about some others. I have Facebook counterparts who write the most obnoxious details of their lives in their updates. I have a friend who tells me that, working in HR in a large company, he regularly googles the people whose resumes he gets -- and has found one guy telling friends on a board somewhere that he peed in the staffroom sink at one job, and another one who bragged about stealing from a former company. I wonder how far they got in the interview?

Is your Internet face the same as your public face? Where do they differ? Curious minds want to know...

Lori

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, I'll show my tentacles to just anybody if they ask nicely.

On the other hand, I've stayed out of Facebook. It is the portal to hell.

Metro said...

Well, I blog pseudonymously for reasons having to do with privacy, politics, and employment.

"Employment" because let's face it, I have to work for corporate fat cats until my book deal comes through, and oddly enough, my sympathies don't tend to reside with people like my current boss (who believes the current low-skill labour shortage in town could be ended by holding a powerboat festival, with its attendant drunkenness and rioting, on the local lake because it would apparently attract young people to live in an area none of them can afford).

"Politics" because who knows? I have a lot of good ideas, and once the Conservatives are thrown out of office maybe I'll campaign. But politicians have to tone down their rhetoric, so some level of deniability is nice.

"Privacy" because my deeply-Catholic, grey-haired mother would be very unhappy to read some of the stuff I've written.

@RC:
Your tentacles are old news. They've been all over the internet for years.

Lori said...

@rain
Please keep your tentacles off my blog...I don't know where they've been!

@metro
You'll have to break ties with me then, if you really want to be pseudonymous...

Anonymous said...

I think 'az' is very similar to me, though of course she isn't the me you would meet if you met me in person.

I'm very aware that my blogs, facebook stuff (I'm really just there for the scrabble) and another forum I post on are read by way more people than I'll ever know about. So basically, I don't say things that I wouldn't feel comfortable with 'the whole world' knowing about.

I have had some uncomfortable experiences with people thinking they know me because they think I am actually 'az'. I find that very strange.

Lori said...

@az
I would agree, az. I think that our Internet faces are very different from our public 'meat space' faces, which are different again from who we really are.