II Chronicles 7:14

If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

A bit rattled...

Okay, so today while I was sitting in the chair getting my roots colored, one of my dear friends who is an older, wiser, wonderful Godly woman sent me a message asking me about the privacy settings on my Facebook profile. I told her I didn't know what they were set to..that I hadn't ever messed with them. She said "Go home and check on it".
Fast forward an hour or two later, I see the red light on my Blackberry blinking telling me that I have a new FB message. As I opened it up, I see this FB friend request from a man with a message along with it with nasty language and just plain scary. It really shook me up because I wondered...was it GOD telling her to check in on me and have me change my settings? She even mentioned that it probably wasn't anything to be worried about, but that I do post some personal stuff on there and I might not want it out there for everyone and anyone (including freakazoids) to be able to read. So...I wonder what made her think of that today...at the same time I got that scary request? Dee if you're reading...I'd love to know...
Anyway, so I came home and changed my settings and now it's all set to Friends Only...which is better...but now I'm thinking about my blog. Eeeek! I wonder if I should make it private too? I hate to "lose" any new readers that I might get, but at the same time, the privacy and safety of my family is way more important than new readers, right!?! What do you all think about this? Do you worry about the "wrong guy" ever reading your blog and trying to find you? It really wouldn't be hard at ALL....

5 comments:

*Ashley Lou* said...

That's why a lot of people use funny code names and blur facial features and don't give specifics about where they live...I have thought about it and might in the future (when there are more of us) but this blog www.ourlittletongginator.blogspot.com does a good job...I read all her posts and STILL don't know exactly what her daughter looks like!!! might be a better option and keeps you open to people looking for inspiration!

Teresa said...

I've got my FB settings locked down for those reasons...I know everyone on there and have an element of trust in them...I had to b/c I was alone for 3 months and everyone knew it.

As for the blog...that's a tough one.

Rene' said...

yea, that's why I try not to mention location -specific stuff on blogs. I don't know , isn't there some computer address thing that smart computer people can find to find the physical address of your computer????like police use it and I think people who are very computer-oriented could use it too???? I don't know a lot about this, but I think the same way.

Kate said...

absolutely! that's why I'm SO paranoid about the pics that go on FB. That's why all the albums of Benjamin and other events are deleted. Once pics go on FB, they're out there for good, even if you delete your account. That's why I'm always working to try and get watermarks on all of my photos when sharing them with others. I need to protect my little man - you just never know what people would do w. that info in their hainds. The blog - you know me, I've gone back and forth between private and public many times, but that was more to keep snoops out, not so much people I never even knew. It's public for now, but I always toy w/ going private again. Like you said, you miss out on meeting new people, but isn't that worth it to protect the ones you love?
FB is always changing their default privacy settings, so you really have to be careful as to who you allwo to see your info/pics/etc. Accepting 'gifts' from people on there or playing games pulls all of your info so be careful. Friends Only - that's how I roll!

KC said...

Ditto to Kate! Friends ONLY! I keep our settings set to private/friends only. I no longer naturally trust people, like I used to. To many people you think are normal, are the ones you later find out have been arrested and are are total freaks.
I try not to give out any revealing information about our location on our blog. No photos of the kids in school sport uniforms, no pictures showing "specific" locations or labels that would reveal where we are, etc.
There are crazy people out there, and really, if someone wants to find you, they can. Just google yourself sometime and you'll freak out! Anyone can get your address/phone number/everything, all from public records.