Thursday, November 26, 2009

Facebook Privacy

My mom just drove home to me a point that I'm sure many of you out there in Reader Land may have reason to be concerned about pretty soon.  She suggested (to put it mildly) that I need to "clean up [my] Facebook page", because prospective grad schools are probably gonna look at it when I start applying this winter.  Now, I'd like to believe that none of the material on my page could be considered controversial.  Yes, there's pictures of me having a good time, but all of the events depicted - including Senior 250's - were school-sponsored.  There are no pictures of me holding alcohol, at least not as far as I can tell.  I've done my best to keep the coarse language to a minimum, and I highly doubt that the pictures of me in my swim trunks when I was whitewater rafting could be considered provocative.

The nature of my page's content aside, my question is this:  How will prospective grad schools and / or employers be able to see the contents of my Facebook page when I've specifically designated my privacy settings so that only my friends can see my page?  I'd like to think that I have nothing to worry about, even if I might have something that could possibly be misconstrued in the wrong way.  But could someone please answer me honestly: am I being naive here?  Could the powers-that-be at the place I'm applying to somehow override my privacy settings and see what I intended to be kept hidden?  I'm really troubled by this right now.  Am I going to have to do like Jack Donaghy did on "30 Rock" and hire a detective to uncover any hidden issues that could jeopardize my career?  ":-|

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