EARLY WARNING - Social Networking Sites

EARLY WARNING

Social Networking Sites


By Nikki Viljoen – Viljoen Consulting November 2010.

I am of the opinion that there are many people out there who don’t have enough to do and the old saying that “idle hands are the devils playground” certainly does apply to some of these individuals.

To have nothing better to do with their lives and their time, than to trawl the social Networking sites in order to ‘steal’ peoples details for their own twisted self indulgent reasons, just highlights to me how far from “civilized” the human race actually is. How sad is that?

I watched one of the crime shows the other day – I rather do enjoy watching a good ‘who done it’ and the whole story revolved around this guy who was a serial killer, who he got his victims off the various social Networking sites.

Everybody on the crime team appeared to be gobsmacked at the amount of information his four (almost five) victims posted on the site. Most of it was inane chatter like “I’m going to curl up on the sofa with a good book tonight” or “going shopping at ABC mall for shoes” and so on. The kind of stuff that would, and indeed does, make me wonder about the lives of these women – I mean, who has the time to do this? I mean at one point his newest to be victim, that he was currently stalking, posted that she was going to this coffee shop for a snack and of course, that is all that he needed to know to make sure that is where he would be.

This woman actually took a photo of the muffin she was about to eat, with her cell phone, and then posted that onto her ‘wall’ on the site that she frequented, with some more inane comments about the coffee shop she was in – really – I mean who in their right mind actually does this kind of thing? The mind boggles!

Sadder still are the kinds of people who deliberately look out for this type of information in order to make mischief to satisfy their sick cravings!

This serial killer stalked his victims using the information that they had posted on their social Networking sites, gained entry into their homes by posing as the Internet guy who was giving them ‘free’ whatever and then distracting them by asking for a glass of water (or something equally as innocent) and then putting up miniature cameras which he then used to watch their every move and familiarize himself with their daily routines. Just as well I am a grumpy old thing that never allows strangers into my home and growls at anyone who even thinks that they can!

As in all good ‘who done its’ he was eventually caught, along with all the drama and suspense that goes with it, whilst he was actually trying to strangle his latest victim. Sadly he had kept all of his previous victims and their bodies hung on meat hooks in his ‘walk in’ refrigeration unit, in various stages of decay.

The message is abundantly clear though. Information that we may only want to impart to close friends and relatives, and certainly never to strangers, we happily put onto our profiles or post onto the walls and share with everyone on our social Networks.

We accept ‘friends’ from all over the world, without ever meeting them, without any thought of consequence. We post pictures of ourselves, our families and even our children and animals and then we wonder how complete strangers get hold of our personal and private information.

Think about what you are doing before you share that juicy titbit!

Sure the social Networks are great for marketing purposes and I certainly use them on a regular basis, with great success, for work purposes. But my private life is exactly that . . . private and any detail about that, that gets shared, is with the people that I know, love and trust and it is done personally, not on a site.

Remember that not everyone is like you and I, many come from the dark side and their only intent is to create hurt and harm.

So, stop and think before you post!

Nikki is an Internal Auditor and Business Administration Specialist who can be contacted on 083 702 8849 or nikki@viljoenconsulting.co.za or http://www.viljoenconsulting.co.za