There's a brilliant editorial in today's LA Times by the editors of IvyGate, a blog that covers news, gossip and other tidbits from the Ivy League, all about lifecasting and Facebook.
Here's a snippet from their OP-ED piece, Facebook Never Forgets:
"Imagine if the current crop of public figures had grown up during the Facebook era. We might have photos of John McCain in Florida slurping body shots off his stripper girlfriend.
Barack Obama rolling a joint on a beach in Hawaii. George W. Bush passed out at a Yale frat party, 40-ounce beer bottles duct-taped to his hands. Hillary Rodham Clinton at a Wellesley peace rally, locking lips with her husband's future secretary of Labor, Robert Reich.
It's one thing to hear that your elected representative had a wild time in college. It's entirely different to have pictorial proof. Would you still vote for someone after viewing a photograph of him passed out in his own vomit?"
Two takeaways: First, eventually there will be enough dirt on all of us that we won't really care what we learn about others. Secondly, perhaps it's time that everyone (not just students) should think more about what and why we post information on the web.
And remember, just because you delete that photo of yourself doesn't mean that it isn't archived somewhere. Forever. After all, your privacy is an illusion.
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