3 ms·

I had a fraternity brother in college who was gay. At some point in time, he realized that he was gay, but didn't want to come out. An incriminating picture wa

I had a fraternity brother in college who was gay. At some point in time, he realized that he was gay, but didn't want to come out. An incriminating picture was posted on facebook and he was forced to reveal his sexual orientation to all of us (well we kinda suspected anyway) before he was ready in a pretty awkward way. He had to do the same not that long after with his family and it didn't go well at all. All because someone posted a picture on facebook that was up for less than 30 minutes. I put the blame mainly on the person who put up the picture, but still, he should have had control over this kind of thing.

derefr 16y ago
> I put the blame mainly on the person who put up the picture, but still, he should have had control over this kind of thing. Facebook isn't special; it's just a subset of the Internet. If the people at your college had had, say, a mailing list instead, and someone had sent that picture to it (thereby putting a separate, cacheable copy in every person's inbox), would you reason similarly that "he should have had control over this kind of thing"? Just because it's one website, not millions, doesn't mean that anything put onto it won't be leaked back out by bullies, trolls, rumor-mongers or busybodies. There's no such thing as privacy in a network where even a single person is less than 100% trustworthy, no matter the medium.
- _delirium 16y ago
  In theory, yes; but in practice, Facebook seems to be the main nexus of these sorts of things. There are things that people will post "publicly" on Facebook that they would never dream of making a separate website for to post publicly. You might assume that nobody would post Photo X on Facebook if they wouldn't also be willing to make www.hereisphotox.com, but it's certainly not the case in practice.
- kareemm 16y ago
  > There's no such thing as privacy in a network where even a single person is less than 100% trustworthy, no matter the medium. Agreed. The issue w/ Facebook is that these "identity collisions" (when an aspect of your identity is exposed to a group of your friends that formerly didn't know, i.e. parents find out you're gay) can happen accidentally far too easily. In other words, it's not about maliciousness... and even if someone did want to spread information about you maliciously, it'd be a hell of a lot more challenging to do so over a mailing list (finding your boss', former co-workers', parents', siblings', friends', etc's email addresses vs tagging a photo or note).
tome 16y ago
The problem is that nothing he could have done could have stopped the picture being posted Even if he had no account it wouldn't have stopped people he knows posting and seeing pictures of him.
jacquesm 16y ago
I put the blame on narrow minded family members. You should be able to 'come out' if you are gay without that kind of nonsense, presumably you have enough to deal with in a situation like that and your family should be supportive. Especially your family.

derefr 16y ago

> I put the blame mainly on the person who put up the picture, but still, he should have had control over this kind of thing. Facebook isn't special; it's just a subset of the Internet. If the people at your college had had, say, a mailing list instead, and someone had sent that picture to it (thereby putting a separate, cacheable copy in every person's inbox), would you reason similarly that "he should have had control over this kind of thing"? Just because it's one website, not millions, doesn't mean that anything put onto it won't be leaked back out by bullies, trolls, rumor-mongers or busybodies. There's no such thing as privacy in a network where even a single person is less than 100% trustworthy, no matter the medium.

_delirium 16y ago
In theory, yes; but in practice, Facebook seems to be the main nexus of these sorts of things. There are things that people will post "publicly" on Facebook that they would never dream of making a separate website for to post publicly. You might assume that nobody would post Photo X on Facebook if they wouldn't also be willing to make www.hereisphotox.com, but it's certainly not the case in practice.
kareemm 16y ago
> There's no such thing as privacy in a network where even a single person is less than 100% trustworthy, no matter the medium. Agreed. The issue w/ Facebook is that these "identity collisions" (when an aspect of your identity is exposed to a group of your friends that formerly didn't know, i.e. parents find out you're gay) can happen accidentally far too easily. In other words, it's not about maliciousness... and even if someone did want to spread information about you maliciously, it'd be a hell of a lot more challenging to do so over a mailing list (finding your boss', former co-workers', parents', siblings', friends', etc's email addresses vs tagging a photo or note).

tome 16y ago

The problem is that nothing he could have done could have stopped the picture being posted Even if he had no account it wouldn't have stopped people he knows posting and seeing pictures of him.

jacquesm 16y ago

I put the blame on narrow minded family members. You should be able to 'come out' if you are gay without that kind of nonsense, presumably you have enough to deal with in a situation like that and your family should be supportive. Especially your family.