#shutyourfacebook Channel 4

One of our Digichamps, Katie, sent me the link to the Channel 4 (UK) tv programme about online identity and the culture of posting inappropriate content online about yourself and your ‘friends’. ‘Shut Up Your Facebook’ was a fascinating and disturbing programme where their seemed to be a genuine disregard for the implications of posting photos and videos that demonstrated vile and thoughtless attitudes. One person who claimed to be professional said that what they posted onto their Facebook profiles was personal and therefore shouldn’t be a reflection of who they were in their professional life. In the next sentence (almost) they said they didn’t care about privacy settings. I think you can guess the next part – yes, the producers set up and interview and then Googled the applicant as part of the interview procedure. Having been ‘outed’ the applicant decided that it was time to remove the offending content. No surprise there but its just the shallowness of the people on the programme that surprised me. That and the laziness associated with ignoring the potential to do great things with networks and social media. Ah well, I suppose this means that those who really bother and use social media effectively will reap the rewards.

I’ve started a Storify with some of the comments from the programme.