Privacy on MSE

Buzzybee90

I don't mean that your family or friends might find you - I mean that people on the forum could find the real you.

I know it's incredibly unlikely that anyone is a criminal but you never who is watching.

barbarawright

I am always amazed at how many people use either their date of birth or the name of one of their children in their username

Buzzybee90

barbarawright wrote: »

I am always amazed at how many people use either their age or the name of one of their children in their username

Just FYI 90 isn't my age hehe.

CH27

barbarawright wrote: »

I am always amazed at how many people use either their age or the name of one of their children in their username

I'm not 27. It's not my birthday, year of birth or house number either

I'm shocked at how much detail some people post on here.

Saturnalia

Up until very recently there was a member who was the subject of quite a lot of creepy, weird, unwanted attention - and had a clear full-face photo of herself as her avatar! Why?

KxMx

tyllwyd wrote: »

I try to stay reasonably private but both my sister and my daughter have come across my posts and realised it was me. What surprises me most are people on the house selling board, who post links to the estate agents details for their own house. I'm surprised the moderators don't pick up on it - I'm sure if you posted up your name and phone number they would remove it.

The worse one I have seen on here was someone looking for a childminder. She named the area and the exact school her kids attended.

When I drew attention politely to the fact it wasn't wise I was pooh-poohed by several people.

All someone with ill intent would need to do was trawl her other posts and it could be easy to identify the poster and her children.

I just got a grabbit for example a pair of pink sparkly shoes.

With that kind of info all someone would need to do is sit in a car outside that school and they could all be identified potentially.

partialycloudy

I read a post a few days ago and thought the subject and a response were quite familar, looked at the name and it was very similar to my cousins...clicked on what previous messages they had written and I am 99.9% sure its my cousin.....

paulineb_2

Saturnalia wrote: »

Up until very recently there was a member who was the subject of quite a lot of creepy, weird, unwanted attention - and had a clear full-face photo of herself as her avatar! Why?

Im assuming you are talking about me. I had that photo on for a matter of weeks. Ive been on this site for 7 years now. The photo was tiny, you could hardly see it and there are several other people on this site who had photos of themselves as their avatar. I actually put up that photo to show someone a picture of my hair that had recently been done. Ive also seen people who have put up massive pictures of themselves in a thread on here, for example at family weddings, them and their kids. Pics that were posted in the body of a thread full size. Ive seen people post on sections of this forum where one poster after another posted their own face or pictures of their kids. I didnt see them getting flamed for that (which I was when the thread was gathering pace that I actually deserved what was happening to me, that was said by someone on this forum). It was suggested that I deserved what was happening to me, but oddly enough the 3 other people who were like I was, receiving nasty PM's on a daily basis, being trolled all over the site, didnt have an avatar up, nothing. And they continued getting abused publicly on here long after the troll stopped harassing me. So why did they get abused in the same way?
Someone like that could pick off any one of us on here, no matter whether we shared any information about ourselves or have a photo up. There are posters on here who have long running blog threads up, who also link their blog on here to their own personal blog/website on the internet and people have commented on their picture and how they look. That is their choice. When people have a business, small medium or large, they'll have a visible presence online. Many people on this forum also link their websites or their blogs to their profiles.

I think its a bit ridiculous that someone like myself who was on the other end of such behaviour is being criticised for having a photo of me online. There are photos of me on other sites. My facebook page is private, I dont have my facebook fitness pages with my photo on but there have been other sites Ive been on (and numerous people in the same job as me, who have if not a photo, their email address/their mobile number visible and to the public). Some fitness instructors I know have their cars covered in certain fitness logos, with their name on it, their email on it and their mobile number on it, its very common in this industry.

I teach fitness classes, its very normal for people in my profession to have websites with their email and mobile number on so that people come to their classes.

The issue was with the person displaying the behaviour and its very likely to be a forum regular, the person has said as much on just about everything theyve posted.
People shouldnt have to watch every p and q they make because some internet gangster thinks its fun to try and bait people. I almost left the site because of all of that, not because of the trolling, but because of the thread of horrible comments that went up after someone posted a thread in support of me (that I had no idea about).

And I dont have second sight, I didnt know when that pic went up that a few weeks later Id be targeted by some troll on here, how on earth could I?

Me putting that photo up had nothing to do with me getting trolled on here and neither had it anything to do with anything Ive shared on here (as was suggested by some posters), because the other people who were being targeted and there were a few of us, didnt have a photo on display. And there were a couple of posters who had shared nothing apart from their efforts to look for a job who got picked off in the same way I did. When the person stopped harassing me, they continued harassing one of the posters who shared no photo and had posted only in job seeking threads by PM and that went on for weeks.

Any of us could be trolled like that at random, I sincerely hope it never happens to you, but if it did, I can assure you that the last thing Id be doing is making comments about whether you had a photo on your profile, Id just be sorry that it happened to you full stop. And I think its a bit odd that so much fuss was made about my avatar when numerous people on here have diary threads on here that list just about everything they do in daily life, comments about their family, their location and links to family photographs as well. Ive seen no one criticised and picked out like I was when that troll started harassing me. Which is probably an indication of the fact that some posters simply don't like me, but when you do have someone who is very likely a forum regular harassing you and others around the boards, then its not going to take a rocket scientist to work out that to annoy some people, you'll only have to breath in their direction. Or even do nothing. Some peoples thought processes aren't that easy to work out, there are a lot of internet gangsters out there, pure and simple.

The issue is with the person doing the trolling, not the person or persons on the receiving end.

[Deleted User]

paulineb wrote: »

When the person stopped harassing me, they continued harassing one of the posters who shared no photo and had posted only in job seeking threads by PM and that went on for weeks.

Any such "harassment" should have been reported to the Moderators. It's also possible to add the user concerned to your "Ignore" List.
Either way, such behaviour should not be allowed to continue for "weeks"

paulineb_2

Oh and what people share or dont share, should be entirely up to them. If something is putting someone at risk of course it should be pointed out. But there are posters on here whose full name is their profile name. Lots of them.

There are people who have facebook pages that are public. I know several of them, people who clearly cant adjust their settings so that their posts are seen by close friends only. And out of the people I have on my facebook, lots of my friends have their mobile number linked to their facebook page.

If the suggestion is that my photo somehow attracted that unwanted attention, Id never be able to put a photo up on any internet page Im on which is somewhat ridiculous.

If the suggestion is that I attracted unwanted attention because of stuff Ive shared on here and that was said (and not in a supportive manner at all), then I suggest people take a look to some of the other sections of this site where people have debt free diaries for example and list lots of details about their lives, their location, their jobs, their kids ages and some of those threads run to 22 and 23 pages.

Im certainly not the only person who has shared anything about my life on this forum. Lots of people have. And as someone else said elsewhere, how do you know anyone on here is who they say they are?

Its easy to create an online persona that has absolutely nil to do with your offline life. Im sure people have done it.

And with sites such as 192.com, its very easy to get information about anyone, if you know the basic details. Some forums are very localised as well. Ive posted on football forums in the past and there are people on those forums who know one another well but met after talking to one another online. I know loads of people who have formed good offline friendships who would never have met if they hadnt posted on a forum.

Also, given that a lot of dating sites ask for peoples age, location, ask you to put a picture up, there will be millions of people who have profiles on certain sites with varying degrees of information on them.

Ive been on sites, dating sites and others where people have recognised me because of my photo and vice versa, nothing to do with my username, they recognised me from my photo even though I hadnt spoken to them in almost 20 years.

If all it took was a photo to attract unwanted online attention, no one would put a photo of themselves anywhere on the internet at any time.

Ive also had photos taken of me at certain events that have ended up in facebook pages and I havent put that pic up. There are many events where photographers will be paid to take photos and then they'll put them on their site to show their work, at a recent event two large photos of a friend of mine ended up on their facebook page.

Unless we all want to exist wearing a paper bag over our heads and never leaving the house, then at some point its safe to say that a photo of us might end up somewhere that we didnt post it.