A social networker's good thinking

In ICWales.co.uk, a young commentator tells of a social Web-enhanced "schoolgirl error" gone very wrong – "the case of 17-year-old Rachael [name deleted for her privacy]… who claims that her MySpace account was hacked and that her innocent advert posted for 60 of her friends was doctored to invite the world and his dog to her house party…. And we all know what happened next, hundreds of young people descended on her parents' house to do all sorts of nasty things to it while no doubt necking rather cheap booze. There is a lesson for all of us there." It's refreshing to hear a younger person advise against too much self-exposure on the social Web for a change, but this is also some of the first coverage I've seen about the risks of indiscriminately sending out bulletins to large numbers of fellow social networkers. Another pitfall for them to be aware of: making their calendars public (with dates and locations of places they'll be) – we write about this in MySpace Unraveled (shameless plug).