Another way to fear social media: Facebook used to harass debt holders.
A Tampa woman who fell behind on her car payments after having to take sick leave from work was surprised to hear about it from friends and family. Turns out the credit agency, which was also calling her up to 20 times a day, hunted down her Facebook profile and started contacting her Facebook friends to inform them that she was in debt.
Several thoughts: first, if Facebook is increasingly how large numbers of people experience the Web, then we should simply expect to see more of this. After all, basic Web searching is a research technique for finding people, and has been since the 1990s.
Second, will such a reputation adhere to Facebook? danah boyd's research suggests no, since people perceive Facebook as higher class. ...which could lead to Facebook being the place for wealthy bankrupts, instead.
Third, this story keys off of the privacy problem nexus around FB.
Workers' comp investigators are already hitting social networking sites to look for potential fraud - Business Insurance had an article on it in September of last year.
Posted by: Steven Kaye | November 18, 2010 at 10:39
Makes sense, Steven. Now did they specify which platform, or just social media in general?
Posted by: Bryan Alexander | November 18, 2010 at 16:12