by Attorney Amy Saunders
Facebook’s newest feature called “Graph Search” opens the doors to potentially embarrassing, threatening and dangerous information about you and your family. The concern is that many Facebook users intentionally expose “horrible things” about themselves BUT do not understand how it will come back to haunt them. The like button is often a point of humor, but be careful and think before you click.
The new search feature will allow users to search items such as …
- Single women who live nearby and who are “interested in men” and like “Getting Drunk”
- Single women with children that live nearby
- Spouses of married people who have liked [cheat-on-your-partner websites] and live nearby
- Employees of [any company] who like racism (or anything else they choose)
- The possibilities are really endless
Prior to this search feature, individuals would need to go to the “Racism” page and then look at a list of everyone who “liked it” and then look at all profiles to see who their employers were. This involved many steps. Facebook has made this very simple. Users will be able to find their perfect victim in seconds.
What can you do to prevent issues?
If you do not want to expose yourself to this, change your privacy settings. If you don’t know how to do that, then unlike anything that could put you in a bad position. Keep in mind that Facebook changes their privacy settings often — re-opening the loopholes. You will need to keep on top of it.
