...it finally happened. the red eye finally publshed a decent, read-worthy article! albeit an op ed, it was still thought provoking and quite dead-on. congrats, red eye! after a million misses, you finally hit something!
Facebook friends: Please untag me
by Stephen Markley
Recently, I removed all of my photo albums from Facebook and untagged myself from all 600-plus pictures collected in my profile over the years.
I vaguely detest people who post every picture of their entire existence on Facebook, but my reasoning involves more than topical annoyance.
As further evidence that we should all stop posting pictures on Facebook and remove the ones that are there, I present to you the case of Nathalie Blanchard of Quebec.
After being diagnosed with serious clinical depression, Blanchard received a monthly check from her insurance company Manulife. She was stripped of her benefits after Manulife investigators dug up pictures of her partying with friends on Facebook, according to CBC News of Canada.
Whether Blanchard was faking depression or merely conned out of benefits by a soulless insurance company, it should teach all of us an important lesson.
Our generation rushed to Facebook and other social networking sites with a clear lack of forethought, posting pictures from every drunk weekend of our young lives without any thought to the consequences.
You don't think an ill-advised slutty nurse costume can't someday keep you from getting a job? Or that a cigarette dangling from your lips in a college photo couldn't someday allow an insurer to jack up your rates?
These are the kinds of issues I wish someone had raised before I put on that nurse outfit and smoked a carton of Kools in a single night while documenting the whole thing with my Coolpix. That's why I'm raising them now for benefit of future generations of Facebookers.
I don't think there's anything more obnoxious than the girl who has her camera at every bar, so when you log on to your computer the next day you find yourself tagged in 37 new pictures--sweaty, inebriated and clearly annoyed that this girl will not put her camera away (and yes, 85 percent of the time, this person is female).
It's not just the irritating habit of certain people who think every shot of Jagermeister must be documented and spread across the Internet for posterity. No matter how high you have your security settings, once you post something on the Internet, it is out there forever in the cloud, and you have surrendered that much more of your privacy. And why exactly? Because you and your friend went to Durkins last Friday? Good for you.
Stop posting pictures, period.
Yes, we may have less evidence of our sweaty, inebriated weekends, but perhaps we can at least wear what makes us feel pretty and smoke our carton of Kools in peace.
STEPHEN MARKLEY IS A REDEYE SPECIAL CONTRIBUTOR.
