With the advent of social networks, it is common to see cases like this happening. The first contact usually occurs through the social network site itself. In most cases, the communication will progress through a more private exchange of electronic mails.
When someone is not entirely satisfied with his/her relationship at home, instead of having an honest and frank discussion with the partner, one may fall into the entrapment of a virtual erotic compensation. It is easy, it is fun, it is exciting, they think it is safe, and they completely disregard the consequences. However, when the whole thing is unveiled, it can cause terrible damage to their current relationships.
With children and teenagers, it can become a serious matter. They have more spare time and are very active in those networks, looking for new friends, some fun and excitement, and a public place where to shine, swap ideas, and freely expose their aspirations. Real parental control is almost nonexistent. As long as they are quiet and indoors, parents are happy. The young people become, in this context, an easy prey for sexual molestation.
Social networks, as well as e-mail, were not created for erotic purposes or to replace dating sites. They are a very practical mean to keep in touch with friends and family. However, it is proven now that closed networks - the ones made of family and regular friends - are not very popular. This is due to the fact that these people are already engaged doing things with each other. Therefore, they are not exciting; they don't bring anything new into your life. On the other hand, an open network - made of people that hardly know each other - seems to be a much more exciting and attractive pastime. It offers more opportunities and gives access to a wider range of people and information.
However, from the dark side of our inner selves, given this opportunity to interact with strangers, some people feel attracted to engage in all sorts of deception. Without the social networks and e-mail, this duplicity would be difficult to be achieved. As long as there are weak human beings, with all kinds of personality disorders haunting them, I guess there is no way to prevent this from happening.
In the U.S., some states are already trying to ban registered sex-offenders of being accepted in social networks. Although this is much more related to the dangers of paedophilia than straightforward love affairs, it seems to me a good thing to do.
Many people I know are afraid to take part in social networks, considering them evil and unsafe. I tend to understand their feelings, since social networks are indeed an ideal environment for all these troubles to originate, even if this sort of purpose was never intended by their creators.
Nevertheless, if your objective is just to keep in touch with family and friends, a social network can be a great tool as long as you know how to use it, by applying some basic security and adopting a discrete behaviour when setting up your account.
Read below some recommendations on how to protect yourself and your family, when you decide to sign up for an account in one of the most popular of these networks...
How to protect and avoid surprises with your Facebook account
1. Before signing up, make another e-mail account, one that you will use only for Facebook (Facebook requires that you have an e-mail account). In the settings of your new e-mail account, set the forwarding of all messages from this account to your normal e-mail account, to avoid having to monitor one more account. Leave the addressbook empty in this account, don't add any of your contacts. In this way, you will be protecting also your friends.
2. Protect your profile by making as few as possible private items visible to the public. Go to Account -> Private Settings, and under Sharing with Facebook, choose Friends Only as your security settings. This will allow only the persons you accept as Friends to see your profile and your posts.
3. Choose a discrete and composed photo of yourself as a profile picture. For women and children especially, avoid sexy and provocative photos that may attract sex-offenders.
4. Only accept as Friends, people that you know or, at least, people that were referred to you by a reliable source. Never accept strangers, of whom you know nothing about. Take advantage of the fact that Facebook allows you to categorize the people you add to your pages. You can fine tune your new friends by putting them into different groups: Close Friends, Friends or Acquaintances. Adopting this natural selection, you will be able to decide what parts of your Facebook you will make available to each of those groups.
5. Never disclose private or confidential matters in your posts. If you need or want to discuss delicate subjects with some Facebook Friend, use the Messages feature, which is only visible to the two parties. And if some Friend posts something that seems improper on your Wall, immediately delete that comment and contact that Friend, to warn that if it happens again, you will remove her/him from your list.
6. Do not hesitate to Unfriend, or even block, a person that shows some other purpose than an honest exchange of ideas. Many are using Facebook, and other social networks, as dating sites, looking for an easy prey. Women, especially, should be very careful when adding a new male friend of whom they know very little about. One good practice is to always check the profiles of these new friends. If they specifically mention Interested in Women, then you already know what to expect of them...
7. When creating Photo Albums, again, avoid publishing sexy and provocative photos of yourself or of your family and friends. Set the privacy of your photo albums to Friends except acquaintances. This can be done when customizing your privacy settings for each album. Never set the privacy to Public.
8. Be careful with your wording, when posting messages or replying comments from anyone. Analize the text carefully, before commiting it, to make sure that it cannot be any misunderstanding or double-meaning to what you intended to say.
9. Pay attention to what Apps you authorize to post to your wall and to access your profile information. I would stay away from Apps altogether, if my intention is just to communicate with friends and family.
Lastly, in the Private Settings, click on Learn more under Controlling How You Share and carefully read the guidelines and explanations about all the privacy settings in Facebook. You may want to go even further than the basic rules that are described here...
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