Social Networks - The Good and the Bad

Social networks are the 'in-thing' these days. There are three social networks I belong to; two for business and one for my personal use.I have been a member of Facebook, the social network going places, for almost 4 years. At the time I joined, I was wondering if I was doing the right thing as one puts their pictures and basically their life out there for close friends to see.

For me it has been a great experience and I love it to bits! I have reconnected with people from college whom I thought I would never see again. It has also given me the opportunity to promote my business and at least people get to know what I do...

However with everything, there is the bad side to it. Some people who have bad intentions are hacking into accounts, sending out false information about great deals and it was reported in the papers the other day that a chap had used a female member's picture and name from Facebook, to apply for the USA visa lottery. She received an email telling her that she had been successful in the visa lottery and she became suspicious as she had not applied. To cut a long story short, she reported the matter to the police and two people were nabbed!

On numerous occasions, I have been able to look at pictures of members whom I have not yet connected with and some people have had their profile pictures used in adverts on the network.I know they have to check their privacy settings, but it does give you a creepy feeling knowing someone can check out your pictures without necessarily connecting with you.

A week ago, a friend made a comment on my page and two hours later, the comment had been removed...by whom, we still do not know. I put a message on my status stating I did not appreciate comments on my page being removed, and 10 minutes later, the comment reappeared! My friend has since then changed his password thrice and keeps getting attacks on his laptop from weird countries. He's a computer engineer and knows how to trace these things.

So do watch out on those networks but have fun too and don't go adding people you don't know.