Be Careful What You Post on the Internet

Internet safety. Blah, blah. Don't share any personal information, don't do this, don't do that. It's been drilled into our heads forever. And yet, people still slip up. Sometimes it's serious, and people get hurt. I'd prefer not to focus on that, though. I'd prefer to focus on the funny. And when I say funny, I mean funny for everyone except the person involved.

Confused? Allow me to explain.

I'm a member of a web-site called Toytown Germany. Basically, a site for expatriates in Germany. *ahem* ENGLISH-speaking expatriates. Despite all the good information that comes across the site, however, there is a lot of baloney. Sometimes the baloney is of a serious nature, such as discussions about the Air France airbus that recently went down in the ocean. Other times, we get caught up in hot topics such as gay marriage and US immigration. (In case you didn't know, gays aren't allowed to immigrate into the US to be with their partner.) Anyway, what started out as a good discussion has turned into a load of baloney. And by a load of baloney, I mean gays arguing with closed-minded heterosexuals about sodomy and being homosexual in general. 

But I'm not here to discuss gay rights. I'm here to highlight the complete idiocy of one of the members. This member was bright enough to use his last name as his user-name. Incidentally, I didn't know it was actually his last name until today, when another member googled the dummy. (Did I mention this last-name-using idiot member was basically referring to gays as sodomites, as if heterosexuals don't do it, and involving himself in general gay-bashing.) So, another member googled his last name, which just so happens to show up on the first page of hits. Some quick research and comparing of his profile information on Toytown and the information on Google shows that he is an associate professor at a university in the States. 

You can see his CV, picture, and publications online. Everything. Now, this is useful for students at the university to find out more about their professors. But it's also available to everyone. So is the idiocy he posted on Toytown. 

A lot of people generate random pseudonyms on the internet to stir things up. It's called trolling. It's nothing new, really. And usually, it doesn't matter; the worst that happens is you get kicked off the web-site for being a general pain in the butt. For this noob, though? Posting such information could be potentially harmful for his career, seeing as his university claims their professors to not engage in bigotry (which was happening on Toytown). 

I'm not going to say who this dummy was, because it's not my place. I'm not really revealing anything secret, either, as all the information is on the internet for everyone to see. Besides, if you're really curious, I've given you enough information to connect the dots on who this guy is. 

But, even though my post is about this dumb-head (that would be a rough translation from Dummkopf), it's not really about him. It's not even about internet safety as much as internet awareness. We share more on the internet than everyone said to. And for the most part, our lives stay the same; perhaps, after a bad run-in, you may be internet-stalked like I was for awhile, or some other little annoyance may happen. But be careful of what CONTENT you post online. The internet isn't always anonymous, and things you say in cyberspace could come back to haunt you. 

Moral of the story? If you want to troll around the internet and be a general idiot, go to an internet café, sign up with a ridiculous pseudonym that could in no way be traced back to you, and go nuts. But if you have a PhD, please be smart and not post bigoted things that can be traced back to you. Internet awareness one-oh-one.