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More social networking concerns

Yeah. I'm not gonna leave you alone about this. I want to drive another point to you about social networking.

After chatting to a few "savvy" Facebook users, I can't help but notice how much they don't realise that the social network has grown.

Looking back in time, in 2012 Facebook announced they had a billion monthly active users. Fast forward to August 2015, they broke news that a billion people visited Facebook on a particular Monday. Then in September it was announced that the service averages over 1 billion users per day.

While that paints a nice pretty picture there's more to it than posting onto your Facebook wall. They have made some pretty big and newsworthy acquisitions like WhatsApp, Oculus VR and Instagram.

See where I'm going? It gets so addictive to make "friends" online. They may not be real friends you see and share life with everyday, but just someone you choose to bloat to about something. Sorry if I come across rude here, but it's still easy to slip up where that social network or  online "friend" will take advantage of that. Here's a simple example.

Of course that's not all of it. There's so many more services out there to social online one way or another. Like Snapchat. Did you see the news about the changes to their terms? Then, predictably, there's a backlash and a clarification. A cycle that we are familiar with. But it turns out they are just rewording what they are already doing, which is keeping your images for advertising.

So now you're wondering, what's team Facebook planning on doing with WhatsApp and Instagram in the future? Err, I don't use Facebook or WhatsApp. I do use Instagram but am very picky with what I share.

Even Google has its own trick where Google+ users can email you without even knowing your email address. Thank goodness you can control that.

So, what's the moral of this story? It's simple. Read the terms, people. Whenever you use a service for putting content online you are at risk at exposing yourself or losing a grip on something that is private and dear to you. So think. If you've thought about posting something, think again and then think one more time "what are the repercussions?"
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