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Beware of social media peeping toms

Peeping Tom

We’ve all been in the same powerless position at some point in our lives, staring at the Facebook privacy settings tab and having no idea how exactly everything works or who will be able to access your profile and see your information. All of the greatest privacy settings in the world are out the window once you make the mistake of sending out a “public” status.

That button next to “post” has a purpose and can quickly come back to haunt you if you don’t pay attention to it. When you are making a post that you only want your friends on Facebook to see make sure you have “friends” checked. If you have your status set to “public” everyone will be able to see your status, even if they are blocked by your other privacy settings.

One website has started taking this common mistake to the public with some hilarious results. Weknowwhatyouredoing.com compiles public Facebook statuses and compiles them into four categories: Who wants to get fired?, Who’s hungover?, Who’s taking drugs?,  and Who’s got a new phone number?

Facebook Status Trouble

These are statuses that all of these Facebook users don’t realize is in the public sphere. Don’t make the same mistake as them or you’ll end up looking just as foolish as them. Social media is not as private as your security settings may make it seem. If you wouldn’t say something in front of a group of 20 people then you probably shouldn’t make a status saying the same thing that 1 billion people can see just because you tinkered with your privacy settings for five minutes. Like momma always said, “Life is like a”…no that’s not right…”If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

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“Peeping Tom” image via Shutterstock

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Written by Justin Maas

Justin Maas is a social media community manager at fishbat. He has worked on accounts in a variety of industries such as skin care, jewelry, and food. He graduated magna cum laude from the University of Miami with a BSC in Advertising.

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