Be careful with your public profile

The Internet has given us new ways to meet people, connect and share. It is normal for us to have a blog or an on-line profile in which we usually post our pictures, thoughts or experiences, like an on-line diary. Everyone can read it! Everyone can comment it! And that's cool!

Nevertheless, there have been a lot of uncomfortable experiences for people who placed too much personal information on their on-line profiles, and maybe you may want to become aware of them. As a matter of fact, there have been a lot of cases of...

+ boy and girls who were publicly humiliated or defamed, as others used the information on their profiles to attack them;

+ boys and girls whose pictures were downloaded from their profiles and then, after being digitally altered, appeared on other web pages, including porn, or even posted around their neighbourhoods with threatening messages;

+ harassment, as abusers could read where these boys and girls studied, where they lived, what they liked to do or which were their main doubts or personal problems; or,

+ boys and girls who were contacted through instant messenger services and on-line profiles, convinced for a date, and then ended up drugged to sleep, waking up in a beach or a hostel's room, after being raped.

Sure you don't want to be under any of these cases, so you had better take a look to what you post on your on-line profile and moderate it a little. Consider the following questions to help you:

+ Are you posting how to contact you? (IM accounts, e-mail address or the like)
+ Are you posting how to find you? (where do you live, study or work)
+ Are you ventilating your very personal matters on-line? (fears or the like)
+ Are you posting unnecessary sensual or sexy photos on your profile?

If you are doing, let me tell you that you may be placing yourself at stake without noticing. There are bad people out there. Be careful.

Knowledge + Society + Relationships