Law Technology

Security & Social Media

By Bryan Sims

I use Twitter. However, I don’t usually post a lot of tweets. To be honest, this is mostly because I am usually doing something else and really don’t think about it. However, one of the questions I have always considered is how much information am I giving away. If I Tweet about going out of town with my family, does that mean that some burglar knows my house is a prime location to burgle?

Apparently, I am not the only person who has this concern. Recently The Reasonably Prudent Law Student noted her distrust of the application foursquare:

FourSquare is an application that works with Twitter and you log on from your phone and it posts a tweet about where you are. Like, ?I?m at Meson Sabika, 400 Aurora Ave, Naperville? and a link or something. I don?t know.

All I know is that FourSquare scares me. It?s a great way of saying, Hey, I?m at this location about twenty miles away from my house. PLEASE ROB ME. NO REALLY GO AHEAD. YOU HAVE MY IMPLIED WRITTEN CONSENT.

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The more I think about it, the more I?m convinced that FourSquare was released by a gang of international thieves who knew it would gain tremendous popularity on Twitter and other social media sites. They were like, Hey, sure, we?re rolling in diamonds and stolen TVs, but we could be rolling in MORE diamonds and stolen TVs.

I am pretty sure that foursquare was not invented by a gang of international thieves. However, I think it is prudent to think about what information you are releasing on your social media networks. Without a doubt, there are many times that there is nothing wrong with letting the world know your location. at other times, however, you may want to think about this a bit before revealing the information to the world.

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Related posts:

1. My Social Media Presence
2. A Cautionary Tale About Social Media
3. What to do if you Have Been Defamed Online

Full post as published by The Connected Lawyer on April 22, 2010 (boomark / email).