When I was a freshman in college, Facebook was only available for use by a select few universities. A friend from Duke mentioned it to me, and for some reason I just could. not. wait. for my lame private school to be included on what was surely the best possible vehicle to scope out potential baby daddies. Or something? I don’t know, I was an 18-year-old girl and Facebook was less than a year old, what purpose could the social networking site have possibly served at the time besides unearthing photographs of my sexy RA at the beach with his shirt off? (F’real. He was hot.)
As time marched on, my schoolmates and I learned to take Facebook for what it was– MySpace with less l33t speak and no sparkly ‘Principessa’ .gifs. It was magical! Until one day when a disgruntled suitor of my roommate’s erased her entire wall (because you used to be able to do that), and wrote a diatribe about what a slut she was. Luckily, as we were wont to do back then, my roommates and I were sitting in a straight line on our respective laptops and were able to troubleshoot the situation before someone– namely, her boyfriend– saw it.
Though we were able to rectify that particular situation, that day marked a turning-point for me. I realized that Facebook was quite dangerous. The next year, our RAs printed out random factoids from the profiles of the residents they were in charge of and pasted them all over the dorms. Do you know how horrifying it was to see “Stephanie *** likes Taking Back Sunday” all over my campus? First of all, it was 2005. Everyone in college sort of liked Taking Back Sunday, or at least had a friend who did. Couldn’t we have chosen “Stephanie *** enjoys Picasso’s Blue Period”? “Stephanie *** likes mac-n-cheese”? This incident made me realize I should probably amend my profile so that only things I’ve liked since birth appear as my interests, like “air” and “water”.
Two years later, the hot button issue on the tips of our professor’s tongues was that our employers would be looking at our Facebook profiles before hiring us. We all began un-tagging photos and burgeoning into mini-thought police: “Mike, don’t even think about tagging that picture or you will be helping me pay off my loans next year when I am unemployable.” Living with Facebook became hard, but living without it would’ve been harder. So we persevered.
Say what you will about my generation, and of those of us who now use these sites to propel web businesses and grow networks that used to take decades to form, but I’ll tell you one thing: most of us have learned by now that Facebook holds a certain power which we must respect. We have adapted to this social media more times than I can count, what with all of the endless threats of being stalked by convicts and fired from our jobs and breaking our parents’ hearts. When the news, and our professors, and our parents told us to be careful on the internet, dammit; we listened.
But as was proven this past week, authority figures sometimes have trouble following their own advice– even if they have a lot more at stake. Newly appointed chief of M16 Sir John Sawers found this out the hard way when it was discovered that his wifey’s Facebook page was the definition of TMI. M16 is the FBI of Britain, and Sawers was advised to inform only his closest family members of his advancement in the ranks. Sawers spent the majority of his career not as a spy, but as a diplomat. It’s safe to say that this lapse in judgement gives serious pause to those who appointed him and already saw him as an outsider.
Focus for a moment. This isn’t some cutesy President Obama Facebook fan page ran by one of his assistants, constantly being updated with pictures of Bo the dog unwrapping a Christmas present with his teeth. This is a Facebook page belonging to the wife of a man who was supposed to be the chief of Britain’s intelligence. A page which includes Sir John being referred to as “Uncle C” (C being his spy-name that, I’m guessing, will never be used). The location of Uncle C’s flat. Pictures of Uncle C frolicking on the beach in a Speedo.
The page has been taken down, but everyone knows that the first thing you do when you find something scandalous on the internet is take a screenshot of it, and Daily Mail has done just that. Read the full story here.
The lesson? When the details of your husbands’ life could directly threaten the security of your family and/or country, don’t post photos of him at his mom’s 80th birthday party on Facebook, LOLZ. Unless of course, Lady Sawers is a spy herself, married to Sir John only to one day blow the lid off of years of exhaustive diplomatic work. Maybe she doesn’t believe in divorce, but could use that good ol’ bypass trust they set up a few years ago. Or maybe she’s a silly, silly woman who’s been bitten by the social networking bug, just another mom-next-door. Sigh.
UM, I love you. Like, a lotskies.