Facebook's new Privacy Settings: what's changed

Facebook has redesigned its site yet again; this time bringing privacy settings "up front" to try and make them easier to find.

It will still take a lot of getting used to as there are simply so many settings to contend with, so we'll be doing a series of tutorials over the next few days and weeks to help you figure it all out. Facebook has also summarised them.
Here are some highlights to expect:
Contextual tips: You will see some pop-up "information" boxes appear when you navigate these settings in Facebook for the first time.
Three privacy shortcuts:
Click the lock icon on the top right of the page to view a drop-down menu with three of Facebook's major privacy settings:

1. Who can see my stuff? Click this, and you'll be presented with three choices; in the graphic below you see my own settings. Under "Who can see my future posts?" you can select the default audience for your posts. Note that you can also tweak these on an individual basis.
The "Activity Log" shortcut will take you to the new-look area that lets you see exactly what you're tagged in (such as photos), along with all the activity you've conducted using various apps (such as all the songs you're guessing on SongPop) and who else can see this activity.
Under "What do other people see on my Timeline", click "view as". You can type in the name of a friend (or view as the public) and see exactly what information about you is accessible to them. In everyone's case, the cover photos will be public, along with the comments and Likes associated with them.

• Who can see my future posts?
  

  Friends except acquaintances

  PublicFriendsFriends except acquaintancesOnly meCustomClose friendsInternet MagazineSee all lists...SGGHSLimited ProfileFamilyAcquaintancesGo Back

  This is the same setting you find right where you post, and changing it there will update it here.
• 

  Where can I review all my posts and things I'm tagged in?

  Use Activity Log

What do other people see on my Timeline?

View As

2. Who can send me Facebook messages? Click this, and you'll see who can send you Facebook messages (or not).

3. How do I stop someone from bothering me? Click this, and you can type in the name or email address of someone who is harassing you and they'll be unfriended and blocked from sending you messages. Under "View All Blocked Users" you can see who you've blocked, if anyone. There are just the three main privacy shortcuts, but there are loads more. At the bottom of this menu, click "see more settings" and you'll be taken to the "Privacy Settings and Tools" page. (This is also accessible by clicking the cog icon on the top right of your page and selecting Privacy Settings from the menu.)

Privacy Settings and Tools:

On this page you will see a slightly different version of the privacy settings that were on previous Facebook versions. Most of these settings remain unchanged, apart from one major addition.

Under Timeline and Tagging on the left-hand side, there is a new setting called: "When you're tagged in a post, who do you want to add to the audience if they aren't already in it?"

This is a slightly confusing setting as it is meant to help restrict a photo of you from being spread around if you don't want it to, but people you don't know may still see it. For example if John tags you in one of his photos, and makes that photo accessible to his 700 friends, then those 700 friends will still see that photo and the tag. And if you haven't changed the tag settings on your own profile, then all of your friends will see it too, as the default sharing options for tagged photos if you is that all your friends will see it. You can change the tag settings in this section, so that all external photos that friends tag you in can only be seen by a selection of your own friends, (or even no one else except you if you like). However, that still doesn't prevent John from uploading a photo of you for his own friends to see.

The only way to solve that is to manage the photos you are tagged in and ask for the photo to be taken down. You can also untag yourself from the photo. The ability to do this is now available through the new-look Activity Log under Photos in the left-hand sidebar. Here, you can browse all the photos you are tagged in, and also view them according to who they are shared with. You can then request a removal of the photo, or simply untag yourself.

For now, this is just a brief overview of the changes. What do you think of them? Are they confusing or a welcome change? Does it make the site any slower or clunkier to use?

Get rid of your Facebook search history (maybe)

Whenever you view someone's page on Facebook, there's a record of that visit. So, if you're in to viewing your ex's page over and over, Facebook knows this. (Your ex will not, no matter how many of the fake "Do you know who's viewing your profile?" apps he or she installs.)

The same goes for if you're searching for the Facebook page of that fantastic Mexican place you just visited. Your search history is recorded, just as it is if you use something like Google (when you are logged in to your Google account, then your searches can be linked to you as well).

On Google, you can choose not to have your search history accessible through your account (Google still holds search logs on its own servers, but they'll be deleted after 18 months). On Facebook, you have to manually delete your search history.

Until a few weeks ago, there actually wasn't any way to view your previous search history at all. But I knew that Facebook was keeping a log of it. Just typing in the first letter of a cafe I frequent, whose Facebook page I'd visited several times previously, brings it up -- even though I have never actually Liked the page.

But now, there's a way to view your old search logs -- and delete them in one big go if you so desire.

The way to do it:

• Go to your Timeline and click the Activity Log button.
• Under Posts and Apps, scroll down to Search and click it.There, you see all the searches you have made, including the time you searched.
• To clear all the searches, click Clear Searches.
• After the warning message comes up, click Clear Searches again to confirm.(If for some reason you want to keep the searches and only delete a few, you can individually click on the lock symbol on the right-hand side next to the particular search you want to delete.)

Now although your search history is now cleared, I expect that Facebook still has a record of the search log somewhere - typical search engines will for legal purposes as much as anything. (Typing the first letter of that cafe still brings them up first in my search results, even though I've deleted the log.)

This clean-up is also something you need to manually do on a regular basis as you can't turn off the search history logs. So, put a recurrent reminder in your calendar and maybe combine it with your general web browser history clean-up session.

Facebook to simplify privacy controls

Facebook is streamlining its privacy controls in a bid to make it easier for people to ask friends to remove photos of themselves from the site.

The changes, to be rolled out in the coming weeks, include:

• A request and removal tool which lets you ask someone to remove multiple tagged photos photos of yourself from Facebook. (There is no way to prevent someone from tagging you altogether in the first place, though -- only the ability to avoid that tag from being shared with your friends via your timeline.)
• Privacy shortcuts, so controls can be accessed from every page rather than in a sub-menu.
• Permission for apps to access or post information will happen in two stages (for most apps).

• Contextual messages that tell you what you're doing on Facebook. For example, if you hide a post on your timeline, Facebook may alert you to the fact that the post may still appear on people's news feeds or elsewhere on Facebook (say, if you posted a link that was publicly accessible and later shared by someone else on their own timeline).

The new privacy controls have been broadly welcomed, but there is some concern over the removal of one tool. Security firm Sophos says that the removal of the "who can look up my timeline by name" setting is a step in the wrong direction, as there should be a way to avoid being found on the site altogether.

In a blog outlining the changes, Samuel Lessin wrote that the feature was only used by a small percentage of people and "didn't prevent people from finding others in many other ways across the site". He wrote: "Because of the limited nature of the setting, we removed it for people who weren't using it, and have built new, contexual tools, along with education about how to use them."

Sophos says that the removal of the tool was a missed opportunity."If the original setting was limited in scope... why not rework it so as to actually protect people's privacy and give them the right to not be found?"

Facebook founder speaks to BBC

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has spoken to the BBC in a rare video interview about the recent concerns surrounding the company's privacy issues.

He said: "The person who's putting the content on Facebook always owns the information... They want to share it with only a few people and it's important that the information only goes to those people."

He added: "We're not going to sell or share the information except with the people that they've asked it to be shared."

Zuckerberg said that the advertising on the site has grown quickly and that is how it will make its money. And would not sell people's information on in order to do so. But to a lesser degree, Facebook is providing demographic information - not personally identifiable, but still personal information nonetheless - to advertisers.

Online advertisements need to be targeted to relevant markets. Let's look at how GMail works, for instance. I know my information remains personal, but the site still scans my emails for keywords and displays relevant advertisements down the site of the page that relate to those keywords. Effectively, my information is still being used for profit. The same thing happens on Facebook but to a greater degree. I've used its ad service, and have managed to narrow down demographics in order to buy targeted ads, and narrow down the number of targeted users by interest, age, relationship status and more.

Like I said, this isn't personally identifiable. But it means that your information is still being used for advertising, whether you like it or not.

Does Facebook 'own' your data?

Facebook quietly updated its terms of service last week, sparking outcry among consumer advocates who interpreted the changes as meaning that Facebook can do what it wants with your data at any time. Forever. Even when you leave the service.

The Consumerist weblog (it's part of the non-profit conusmer rights publication Consumer Reports) cited some pretty scary changes that Facebook made to its terms, which are the conditions you agree to when you use it. The Consumerist wrote:

'Facebook's terms of service used to say that when you closed an account on their network, any rights they claimed to the original content you uploaded would expire. Not anymore.

'Now, anything you upload to Facebook can be used by Facebook in any way they deem fit, forever, no matter what you do later. Want to close your account? Good for you, but Facebook still has the right to do whatever it wants with your old content. They can even sublicense it if they want.'

Facebook has since responded and defended itself, saying that the changes don't, apparently, give it carte blanche to do what it likes with your content, and if you deactivate your account, it will respect the privacy settings you had put in place prior.

What it does mean though is that your content won't be deleted from, say, a friend's Wall when you delete your Facebook account, in the same way that an email you send a friend won't be deleted when you delete your email account. A representative from Facebook told The Industry Standard:

'We are not claiming and have never claimed ownership of material that users upload. The new Terms were clarified to be more consistent with the behavior of the site. That is, if you send a message to another user (or post to their wall, etc...), that content might not be removed by Facebook if you delete your account (but can be deleted by your friend). Furthermore, it is important to note that this license is made subject to the user's privacy settings. So any limitations that a user puts on display of the relevant content (e.g. To specific friends) are respected by Facebook. Also, the license only allows us to use the info "in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof." Users generally expect and understand this behavior as it has been a common practice for web services since the advent of webmail. For example, if you send a message to a friend on a webmail service, that service will not delete that message from your friend's inbox if you delete your account.'

After the outcry from Facebook users, who set up protest groups such as 'FACEBOOK OWNS YOU: Protest the new changes to the TOS!', founder Mark Zuckenberg responded on the official company blog, clarifying that the terms were changed to make it clearer that information may appear in two places, such as when a person sends a message to a friend.

'We think this is the right way for Facebook to work, and it is consistent with how other services like email work,' he wrote, adding that 'in reality, we wouldn't share your information in a way you wouldn't want. The trust you place in us as a safe place to share information is the most important part of what makes Facebook work. Our goal is to build great products and to communicate clearly to help people share more information in this trusted environment.'

What Zuckenberg acknowledged was that, 'We're at an interesting point in the development of the open online world where these issues are being worked out. It's difficult terrain to navigate and we're going to make some missteps, but as the leading service for sharing information we take these issues and our responsibility to help resolve them very seriously.'

The interesting thing about all this is that Facebook hasn't amended the terms of service to make it clearer to users. Why doesn't it just give an example like the one they mentioned about about how your content might still stay on their system? Why does the fine print have to include so much legalese? Google has a privacy page that gives examples in plain English about how your data is used, and why.

Also, the way Facebook works isn't just like someone's inbox - it has public parts, semi-public parts, photos and applications. It's a completely different dynamic. All very interesting stuff!

Facebook vigilantes publish alleged arsonist's image

This is one of the more interesting days when it comes to privacy and Facebook, as it opens whole new areas - that of internet publishing, the law, the right to a fair trial, free speech and people taking the law into their own hands.

Australia has had its worst bushfires for some time - 200 people have been killed, countless homes destroyed. The country's citizens are angry, particularly because some of the fires were deliberately lit. Who on earth could be responsible for such a horrific act?

Well, Victorian Police have arrested and named one man who is alleged to have been involved in the arson, Brendan Sokaluk. Australian publications are not allowed to publish his photo, in conjunction with court suppression orders. If they do, they could be deemed in sub judice contempt. And an 'Australian' publication means anything that is published in Australia, so it therefore extends to foreign-hosted websites.

However, as soon as he was named, vigilantes trawled his MySpace and found his photograph - a photo of a bulky, nondescript man with a small keyring digital camera aimed at a mirror. They copied the image, mirrored the page, sent it around and began setting up groups on Facebook all showing his image and sporting names such as:

"Brendan Sokaluk, the Victoian [sic] Bushfires Arsonist, must burn in hell." (Arguably such a knee-jerk reaction that they couldn't even spell Victorian correctly.)
"TOURTURE [sic] AND KILL Brendan Sokaluk GIPSLAND ARSONIST!!!" (Again, another typo as the fuming vigilante sweats over the keyboard, with caps lock down.)
"make it know [sic] Brendan Sokaluk is the man who was arrested for arson."

Some of these groups are attracting 3,000 or more members, and the descriptions of what they want to do to the alleged arsonist are quite vile. What the 'vigilantes' fail to realise is that by venting their anger in this way they could actually stop Sokaluk from receiving a trial altogether, because it would arguably mean they could not find any objective jurors. In a worst-case scenario, Sokaluk may not even go to trial, if his defence lawyers apply for a trial to be stopped for this reason.

Individuals may also be in contempt of court; as the law does not necessarily apply just to publishing companies.

The other issue the existence of these groups raise is what Facebook should be doing in terms of the content it allows on its site. As it is important to encourage free speech and debate where does one draw the line when it comes to inciting violence? At the moment Facebook is keeping quiet and the groups remain online.

Wife finds out about divorce on Facebook

"Neil Brady has ended his marriage to Emma Brady," read the Facebook update, broadcast to all of Neil's friends.

Neil, filing for divorce from Emma, had changed his relationship status in his Facebook settings.

Public humiliation? Or a misjudged privacy setting? We may never know, but Emma Brady only found out what was happening to her marriage when a friend told her!

Someone in Canada had even commented on Neil's status update, saying he was 'better off out of it'.

Emma said she was 'shell-shocked' at the revelation.

Source: Daily Mail

How your private photos Facebook can be made public

A few months back we discussed Facebook photo album privacy settings and how you can make sure your bosses don't see those Christmas party shots, for instance. And a few days ago we explained what content is viewable when you are logged out, including photos.

But there are still a couple of ways in which your photo albums - and your friends' pics - can be seen by people outside your immediate circle (including ones who refuse to join Facebook) regardless of privacy settings. You would think that if you set your album to be viewed only by 'friends' that no one else could see them.

This isn't necessarily true.

Unique album URL method:
When logged in and viewing your photos, there's a special album URL (web address) displayed at the bottom of the screen. It takes the form (where the Xs represent random numbers/letters):

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=xxxxx&l=xxxxxx&id=YOURFACEBOOKIDNUMBER

This is a unique URL and if people don't know it they won't be able to access your album (there was a loophole last year, now fixed, that allowed people to easily circumvent this by guessing the string of characters the Xs represented). However, anyone who has the URL will be able to view the album even if they aren't on Facebook -- yes, even if you only wanted friends to view the album. So, if you email an album's address to 20 mates and they send it to all their friends, a lot more people than you intended could be viewing the album.

So, before we send that unique URL to our friends, we will consider who else might be told about it and the implications not only for ourselves, but for our friends.

Image URL method:
Go to anyone's album and click on an image thumbnail. Right-click the image and choose to copy the image's URL. You can paste the address (ctrl+V) into the address bar and view it even when logged out. You can also embed the image so it appears on other websites.

Oh, and here's a little 'Easter egg' - delete everything up to any forward slash in the image's URL, and you get this guy wearing a "Little Celtics Fan" bib. Now what's all that about?

Deleting my own content from Facebook

What irritates me about Facebook is there's:

1) no easy way to delete my own content apart from clicking Edit > Delete on every post. When you have literally hundreds and possibly thousands of posts, this is more than a chore. You might be tempted to recruit professional Facebook Deleters to do the job for you.

2) no way to track the reams of content I've posted beyond my own profile. If I make a comment on Dave's profile or on the Muppets message board that I later think is inaccurate, how can I find a list of messages I've written and delete them? And what if someone is an impressionistic 16-year-old who forms some dangerous opinions which, in hindsight, they realise are ignorant and detrimental to future employment prospects? How can they find out where they posted the content so it won't be tied to their profile?

Facebook makes it so hard to do, and there is barely any information on deleting posts. So what can we do? Any suggestions on easy ways to manage where our own content is going and where?

Trainee cops trawl web for knife gang evidence

Rookie cops in Scotland have been scouring Facebook and other social networking sites to find pictures of youths wielding violent weapons like knives, in a bid to cut teen violence.

Much of the time the young people, evidently unaware that their acts of bravado are available to all and sundry, are posing in a public place such as a park, which is an illegal offence. If they are at home, the cops pay a visit to the teen and their parents.

Constable Holly McGee, 18, told BBC Newsbeat: "We're looking for anyone who is brandishing offensive weapons or blades. We take the date, the time, detail of what's in the photograph, [then] a copy of the photograph is printed out and thereafter it's all sent to the gangs task force unit."

Operation Access, as the project is called, has led to the questioning of 400 teenagers and has been declared a success.

Source: BBC Newsbeat

What Facebook collects about you

Facebook's privacy policy is written in plain English, but there are still a few vague phrases kicking around. So, what stuff does Facebook hold on you?

Apart from the usual stuff all websites know about you when you visit (like the numerical identifier, called the IP address, that traces you back to your internet provider) Facebook says it holds personal information you "knowingly choose to disclose that is collected by us and Website use information collected by us as you interact with our Website". This essentially means everything you say and do on Facebook is collected, because everything you do on there is a knowing disclosure - right?

It also says "you provide us with certain personal information, such as your name, your email address, your telephone number, your address, your gender, schools attended and any other personal or preference information that you provide to us". Wow. I certainly haven't told it all of this stuff. I think I registered before you had to specify your gender, so it doesn't know this, either. If people make all of this stuff available for even close friends to view (and say a friend's account gets hacked), it's perfect fodder for an identity thief.

You also need to provide Facebook with your date of birth, because you need to say you're over 13 to use the service. I always provide my date of birth to identify myself when I call a bank.

Note: All this doesn't even apply to the third-party applications that you might have installed. As soon as you give them permission to install themselves on to your Facebook profile, they have access to your data, too. And in an earlier post we discussed Beacon, the feature that broadcast certain actions on third-party websites to your friends that you may have preferred to keep private.

Third parties that you haven't even given permission to access your profile can access aggregated information about you. It's not personally identifiable, but your actions are contributing to Facebook's bottom line. "We do this for purposes such as aggregating how many people in a network like a band or film and personalising advertisements and promotions so that we can provide you with Facebook. We believe this benefits you."

We believe this benefits Facebook, too, n'est-ce pas?

Oh, and most creepy of all, "We may use information about you that we collect from other sources, including but not limited to newspapers and Internet sources such as blogs, instant messaging services, Facebook Platform developers and other users of Facebook, to supplement your profile."

Huh? This is probably something Facebook will focus on more in the future, as information becomes more easily tied to individuals. Does this mean Facebook will be able to associate your profile with, say, a mention of you in a local newspaper? When you list your blog on your profile, will it scan the blog and tie it up with your likes/dislikes? And as Microsoft has a small stake in Facebook, and you list your Hotmail address to sign up - where will that end? Facebook says: "Where such information is used, we generally allow you to specify in your privacy settings that you do not want this to be done or to take other actions that limit the connection of this information to your Profile (e.g. removing photo tag links)."

What I don't like about Facebook is it doesn't make it easy to delete information about myself. If I need to delete things individually from my Wall, for instance - I can't do multiple deletes. Making it possible is one thing, but it's also quite difficult to do.

Teacher dismissed after Facebook faux pas

A North Carolina teacher complaining on her Facebook profile of working "in the ghetto of Charlotte" was suspended last week and risks being dismissed. The move has prompted teachers in the area to revise their policies on staff's online behaviour. The teacher did not mean for her flippant remark to be viewed by all and sundry, but it was uncovered after a search of teachers in the area.

Juror dismissed after asking friends to help make a decision!

All right, out of all the stupid things we've heard people do this week, this one takes the cake. A juror involved in a British child abduction and sexual assault case asked her Facebook friends to help make her decision!

Do these people not realise you aren't allowed to discuss these things even verbally, let alone on a public website? Geez!

Apparently, the woman said: "I don't know which way to go, so I'm holding a poll." She had not even turned on Facebook privacy settings.

Lady, check out the Facebook settings, sure, but don't risk contempt of court in the first place!

Inviting the whole world

A girl's 16th birthday party was ruined when 60 youths gatecrashed the private event after reading about it on Facebook, The Daily Telegraph reports.

The owner of the south London Baba Foundation community centre - which doubles as a restaurant - said he was horrified when the massive gang appeared outside after reading about the party on Facebook.

Daniel Sisilu said he 'blamed himself' for the trouble last Saturday after putting only one bouncer on the door.

He said he only agreed to the party because he was friend's with the teenage girl's mother.

He said: "I blame myself and I totally regret this. But I've been totally had.

"If you put an invite on Facebook then you are inviting the whole world to come along."

Source: The Daily Telegraph

Events on Facebook are a handy way to coordinate parties and get-togethers. But many events are not made closed, meaning the details are technically readable by all and sundry. If you're a member of a network, your event may even be accessible via the network's home page!

Your friends' applications are sucking your data!

Sounds like a long-winded B-grade horror movie title, doesn't it? Your friends' applications are sucking your data! But these third-party applications are very likely siphoning personal info from your profile, if you haven't adjusted privacy settings.

Confused? It's like this: each time your friends add an application, your info could be shared with developers whose applications you haven't even installed! This even extends to things like the type of relationship you're looking for, religious views, even your Wall!

Granted, not all these are on by default. But it shows how much Facebook developers can (and I hate this term but I'm going to use it) drill down to minute detail. Think of what marketers can do with this data!

To find out what info you're sharing, go to the Application Privacy page (under Privacy), and look at What Other Users Can See via the Facebook Platform. You can see a list of things that you can or can't share:

• 
  

• Share my name, networks, and list of friends, as well as the following information:

• Profile Picture
• Basic Info
• Personal info (activities, interests, etc.)
• Current location (i.e. town, city etc)
• Education history
• Employment history
• Profile status
• Wall
• Notes
• Groups I belong to

• Events I'm invited to
• My Photos
• Photos of me
• Relationship status
• Online presence
• What type of relationship I'm looking for
• Which gender I'm interested in
• Who I'm in a relationship with
• Religious views

• 
  

Tick or untick as appropriate. As you can see, you have no choice but to share your name, network and list of friends.

If you want absolutely nothing shared, then underneath this box, you may see "Do not share any information about me through the Facebook API". But very likely, if you've added any applications, this will be grayed out. Click on "Why can't I see this?" and you'll see this explanation:

You are unable to fully opt out of sharing information through Facebook Platform because you are currently using applications built on Platform. To enable this option, you need to remove any applications you have added, and remove your permissions to all external applications that you may have used.

Basically, this means you'll need to uninstall all the applications in order to turn off all sharing.

Relationship status: aargh!

On Facebook, there's a place where you can fill in profile information such as your relationship status.

By default, any change in the relationship status is relayed on the News Feed so everyone else is alerted to it. A friend was once surprised they hadn't heard about a change in relationship status because he "didn't see it appear on Facebook". This is because alerts had been turned off!

It's kind of sad that people think they can only find out about big upheavals in people's personal lives through the Facebook feeds. In a sad and recent case, which is not Facebook's fault, a man was sentenced to life after murdering his wife when she changed her status to 'single'. The man has been dubbed the 'Facebook killer', but I'm not keen on how the media portrays it as all Facebook's fault -- clearly, other dynamics were at work; the man was on drugs at the time, he was bitter, he had made threatening phone calls.

But you know, it's best to make sure those status updates aren't relayed to all and sundry (find it under Privacy > News Feed and Wall. Uncheck that box!). And if you don't get along with your ex, delete them from your friends list for goodness sake!

Bono and bikinis - another privacy warning

Cheeky pictures of U2 lead singer Bono and several bikini-clad babes made their way around Facebook after one of the girls made all the photos available to everyone in her network. What was her 'network'? Oh, only one of the biggest cities on the entire planet... New York! That's why we don't recommend being in a Facebook network at all. When you join a network, Facebook changes your settings by default so that people in that network have access to your profile. Dip into the privacy settings to make sure only your friends can see the information you're disclosing on your profile.

Airline staff sacked after Facebook insults

Thirteen staff at Virgin Atlantic were sacked for making disrespectful comments about passengers and derogatory allegations about poor safety standards on public areas of the Facebook social networking site. Less than a week later, British Airways staff were reprimanded for whingeing about "annoying" and "smelly" passengers.

The events highlight how companies are realising how powerful the web is at shaping reputations, as this Economist article, Losing Face, explains.

No doubt PR companies who specialise in mediating and monitoring how brands are represented by bloggers and denizens of social networking sites are jumping at the chance to promote their own 'damage control' services.

Clearly, companies haven't been doing more to let their staff know what is and isn't acceptable in the first place? Every workplace has an internet usage policy, but it seems that people assume it's switched off when they leave the office, or they forget that things they post online can be traced.

After the Virgin Atlantic sackings, the company posted on its official fan page:

"Virgin Atlantic has been made aware of some malicious comments that have been made on a social networking site by a small number of its staff. The airline has started an immediate disciplinary investigation. We do not tolerate any criticism of our passengers or industry-leading safety standards and we are taking this matter very seriously."

When your boss is your Facebook friend... SICKIE WOO!

So. You're sick. Sick of work, that is. And you don't want to come in. So, what do you do? You call your boss and say, "I can't come in this morning. I'm unwell."

In the old days, your boss would sigh and say, "I hope you feel better soon."

But these days, your boss doesn't feel sympathy. They know how to prove you were lying. It doesn't involve hiring a private investigator and having someone follow you to make sure you don't leave the house.

All they have to do is log on to Facebook. Now, this particular story may turn out to be urban legend, as the alleged e-mail exchange is denied by boss and culprit... but the story goes like this:

Kyle Doyle chucked a sickie, as they say in Australia, and on his Facebook status update were the immortal words,

Kyle Doyle is not going to work, fuck it i'm still trashed. SICKIE WOO!

When Kyle refused to give his boss a medical certificate, saying it was unnecessary, his boss then pasted the status update into an email as 'proof' of the deception.




True or not, the email illustrates rule number one: your current boss should never be your friend on Facebook. That's what LinkedIn is for. Rule number two you can work out for yourself...

Source: http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=651937