Food for Thought
There are many of us in LJ land who lock posts from time to time. Some, like me, lock almost all of their posts. I am making a rare exception today to make a point to all of us here in the ether.
If you lock your posts, perhaps you feel relatively confident that what you say is not going to be food for general consumption, or really is not the business of anyone else. A reasonable, if erroneous, assumption.
Take a look at your friends list. Now follow the link to their profile pages, and see the list of their friends. Now follow those links to THEIR friends pages. Hmmm. Do we see a pattern? You're connected, indirectly, to more people than you know. How do you know that what you say in a private, friends-locked post won't be shared, intentionally or unintentionally, with others whom you don't know or with whom you don't particularly care to share your thoughts?
It is, to a certain extent, like sex. You may only be having relations with one individual, but the minute you copulate with that person, you share every partner you have ever had with him/her and they with you. You have now NOT had sex with one person, but with perhaps 6, 12, 50 or more people. Hmmm.
Is there a moral here? Perhaps it is to remember that NOTHING in LJ, or, indeed, on the internet, is truely private. Things which people have posted in private here have made their way to Peerage discussion lists. Don't post anything you won't have to own up to someday.
If you lock your posts, perhaps you feel relatively confident that what you say is not going to be food for general consumption, or really is not the business of anyone else. A reasonable, if erroneous, assumption.
Take a look at your friends list. Now follow the link to their profile pages, and see the list of their friends. Now follow those links to THEIR friends pages. Hmmm. Do we see a pattern? You're connected, indirectly, to more people than you know. How do you know that what you say in a private, friends-locked post won't be shared, intentionally or unintentionally, with others whom you don't know or with whom you don't particularly care to share your thoughts?
It is, to a certain extent, like sex. You may only be having relations with one individual, but the minute you copulate with that person, you share every partner you have ever had with him/her and they with you. You have now NOT had sex with one person, but with perhaps 6, 12, 50 or more people. Hmmm.
Is there a moral here? Perhaps it is to remember that NOTHING in LJ, or, indeed, on the internet, is truely private. Things which people have posted in private here have made their way to Peerage discussion lists. Don't post anything you won't have to own up to someday.