This forum is in an odd way quite private - the posts are public but most people don't have much about where they live or their real names. This allows you to be fairly open.
I became a fairly public figure - in some circles - through my cancer advocacy work over the years. As a result, the fact that I had cancer is simply out there - if someone looks. I can't hide it and anyhow, I'm not looking for a job. But internet privacy is IMO a serious issue and one that many people don't think about until too late.
I realize that much younger people often feel differently about it (I'm 62). But identity theft and so on are very serious issues.
Anyhow as long as you know what you're doing, no problem. Most people do not think about it.
The people which do not think about it are the ones which are really young. And some of this is well out of an individuals control. Here is an example which will take 10-20 years to play out.
My best friends son is a Junior in HS and is on FB. I coached him in soccer for many years when he was ages 9-12. I know him reasonably well and we have a good history together. His sister is my babysitter and I see her around 1 time per month, on average, picking her up or dropping her off. I see their father and their parents quite a bit.
I am friends with both parents and the babysitter (the sister) on FB. The son is on FB, but we are not friends (that would not be cool to him I guess).
Try to follow this
the girlfriend of my friend's son is friends with the babysitter
The girlfriend posted pictures of my friend's son in women's clothing (they dressed up in skirts and heals at some women's clothing store at a mall).
The pics were freakin hilarious. Really. It was two guys dressing up, and the girlfriend was the one which posted the picture.
I saw the photos because my babysitter was tagged in a different photo in the same album. No way I would have even seen the photo unless the babysitter was not tagged in them.
I mentioned to his father one day that his son was a cross dressing transvestite, and we got a good laugh out of that. He had not seen the photos until I mentioned it.
A few days later I met the girlfriend for the first time when I was at the house for one thing or another... and I said "so you are the one with the photos of NNNN in women's clothing."
Her jaw dropped.
"You saw those?"
My reply was "yes".
She had NO IDEA about the privacy settings.
Because I was friends with the babysitter, who was friends with the girlfriend, and the babysitter was tagged in other photos in the same album, I saw all the photos.
Let that serve as a warning- if you post photos, lots of people can see them and when people get bored (at w*rk) there is only so much to do until I start looking at people's photos on FB.
Here are two issues:
1) More than likely this is a high school romance which will not last- even if the son is smart enough to untag himself from the photos, he cannot remove the photos from FB.
2) HS kids tend to have 200-400 friends on FB. One kid I used to coach in soccer has close to 900. Will these kids know to "trim" their friends list later on in life? More than likely if these people intend to work in the area, these photos will be seen. Think about it, if I saw that photo, what about a friend of the girlfriend whose parents are hiring managers at the local megacorp?
Ask me again in 10 years how this played out.
Those photos were hysterical.
OTOH, I have two albums which are scanned photos from the Fiji house about 15-20 years ago. Beer can Pyramids, Wed night century clubs (ah dos were da days). Girls with big hickeys (the size of fists) and generally photos which are funny. Many people untagged themselves from it once I posted the album. But the photos remain, and I am not embarrassed by any of them (I was taking them, so am not in too many of them). Other people which did not know me in college ask about them all the time. What is a century club? Good conversation starter, I think.