> when your social profile(s) can turn against you
“Soyez nets sur le net !” can be translated by “be clear on the net” – I stumbled upon this project of the Paris City Hall dedicated to raise young people’s awareness concerning their e-reputation on social platforms, especially on Facebook here. A very good initiative to help us understand the reach of our virtual actions…!
E-reputation in a few words: “the impression produced by the available information on the Internet about you” – profile status, images, but also comments, etc… Your online reputation evolves over time according to your publications but also with your friends ones – so that it cannot be totally controlled, but only managed as well as possible!
I was pleasantly surprised by the relevance by the whole work: design is trendy enough to catch teens and even young adults’ attention, and above all content is really pertinent. Its chore feature is an interactive test to let you measure your e-reputation based on randomly selected items of your Facebook profile:
- how many “real” friends do you have compared to the number of your FB friends?
- have you meet your FB friends in real?
- match your FB friends’ names with their profile picture
- do you undertake all your Fan Pages?
- how would you proceed to create an event for your birthday?
- would you feel at ease seeing some pictures of you displayed in the street / on your bedroom wall?
- would you feel at easy seeing some status you published being displayed on your classroom whiteboard / in front of your colleagues?
- how do you minimize the visibility of former publications you made?
The website also offers practical factsheets about Facebook to help you “anticipate and resolve problems”: confidentiality settings, photos tagging, friends groups, applications and fan pages, etc… You find useful links to “contact the competent authorities in case of trouble” as well as a blog section with e-reputation newscast.
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It was quite weird for me to see some very old photos and posts resurface when taking the test… I sincerely consider being cautious about what I publish on Facebook, as I’m aware that everything can be seen by anyone and I do care about not revealing my private life to anyone. Yet I realized I could feel a little embarrassed with some of my photos and posts being offered at the sight of anybody – nothing serious fortunately, but still, I don’t like that.
That’s why we might keep in mind that nowadays all this data is public, so for example your potential recruiter who wanna know learn a little more about you before the interview might check your social medias profiles… So don’t wait to visit ereputation.paris.fr and start learning more about good habits and security reflexes to protect your digital identity, even if you’re older than 14!
And now, are you ready to take the e-reputation test?
