In this day and age, nothing we say or do is private. Every picture one puts on their Facebook or Twitter page is out in the world for anyone to use – and maybe even take advantage of.
Junior public relations major from Dallas, Mary Smith, learned the hard way that privacy in the digital age is an issue to be taken very seriously.
Smith got a phone call from her ex-boyfriend, who alerted her about a suspicious page on the social networking site myYearbook and provided her with a link to the page.
“I got on and this girl is pretending to be me. She has a different name and lives in a different area but she’s using all my pictures and everything,” Smith said, “and she’s, like, pretending to be friends with people and she’s actually in a relationship with someone on this myYearbook thing.”
Smith said she was shocked to see all her recent pictures on the fake myYearbook page.
“I messaged her and was like, ‘I know this isn’t you ‘cause it’s me and you’re using all my information,” Smith said, as she recalled the message, “and this is against the law and if you don’t stop I will call the cops on you.’”
She said the whole incident made her more cautious of the information she put online.
“My Facebook was not, like, secret so I made everything secret so you can still search for me but you can’t see anything on my profile,” Smith said, “and all of my – anything else I had on the Web I took off.”
Smith said she now takes any opportunity presented to share her story with other people and help them avoid similar situations.
“My sorority, we talked about this one time,” Smith said, “and I told them about my situation and what happened and how it’s really important to keep all your stuff private and if you don’t want people knowing something then don’t put it on the Internet.”