Treading carefully - Who you should accept as friends on facebook.

Facebook is a great social networking tool - and offers many benefits such as sharing photos, keeping friends in the loop, inviting people to events and a lot more! However have you been selective in accepting "friends" or have you been accepting willy nilly every friend invitation?

If you haven't been selective (or at least making sure you know the people who you have accepted as a friend) - you could find yourself in the position of a women living in Switzerland. She has recently lost her job after her employers noticed she was updating her facebook profile (at home) when she had claimed to be too ill with a migraine to use a computer. She said the company had created a fictitious Facebook persona which become "friends" with her, allowing the company to monitor her online activity.

But the company says it followed a simple logic: that those who are well enough to use Facebook with a migraine are well enough to work with a migraine.

So should you accept invitations from your clients, suppliers or employers (or even your employees!)? To be honest I am not overly sure if this is a great idea. If you're happy with the fact that a client, customer or supervisor / boss can take a look at what shananigans you got up to on the weekend then go ahead - but I know many people would feel uncomfortable about it.

And this just doesn't apply to Facebook either. Whatever you post online is accessible by everyone (including prospective new employers!).

Leslie Nassar, a former Telstra employee had a very public spat with his employer over his fake Stephen Conroy account on Twitter, and ended up leaving (or possibly fired) due to his comments.

I guess the moral to all of this is:

a. Be careful what you post
b. Consider who can access what you post.