Word Of Caution When Posting Social-media Images

The dan­ger of post­ing inti­mate images.

-Errol McLeish –
Ermarlii16@​hotmail.​com

A beau­ti­ful young Italian nation­al , Tiziana Cantone , aged 31, shared a video on the social media web­site Whatsapp with four friends of her and her boyfriend hav­ing sex. Unfortunately for Ms. Cantone, the video was some­how post­ed on sev­er­al oth­er social web­site, includ­ing Facebook, which went viral and attract­ed over a mil­lion hits.

Ms. Canton tried to get the video removed from the inter­net but failed in her bid, attract­ing lit­i­ga­tion cost of € 20,000. She was shunned and ridiculed in the process.
Driven by despair, Ms Canton com­mit­ted suicide.

There are many lessons to be learned from Ms. Canton’s error in judg­ment. The need for cau­tion for per­sons using social media to be care­ful when post­ing sen­si­tive infor­ma­tion can­not be overem­pha­sized. The real­i­ty is, once post­ed in the pub­lic domain it can­not be retracted.

I have often said that the Internet world, with its numer­ous social web­sites , attrac­tive inter­ac­tive mech­a­nism which cap­ture instant images and infor­ma­tion, and divulging it in real time, can be a dan­ger­ous place to explore.
One must trod with exceed­ing cau­tion when using it . It is dan­ger­ous pri­mar­i­ly because the infor­ma­tion you share can eas­i­ly be manip­u­lat­ed and cir­cu­lat­ed with­in sec­onds to mil­lions of users.

There are many per­sons who are obliv­i­ous of the poten­tial neg­a­tive impact this can have on their lives. I would hope that with the many instances of doc­u­ment­ed mis­use of person’s images, users of the net would exer­cise pru­dence when divulging infor­ma­tion of what­ev­er form, to friends via the net, some of whom have ulte­ri­or motives.

Unfortunately in many instances this has not been the case, Ms. Canton’s case is one such instance.
If only those who engage repeat­ed­ly in these prac­tices would stop and think that it’s bet­ter pre­serv­ing one’s san­i­ty than give it away in one moment of indiscretion.,
Were this warn­ing to be heed­ed per­haps then we may see a reduc­tion in these embar­rass­ing inci­dents yet trag­ic incidents.