The “next big thing” online is a direct consequence of the “last big thing” – repairing the reputational damage inf licted by social media over-sharing.
From the moment millions of us began carelessly reminiscing with former schoolmates on Friends Reu-nited back in the days of dial-up, we’ve been sharing more and more to anyone and everyone – from details of our diets, daily move-ments and drinking habits to our deepest, darkest fantasies.
Even those who don’t think they’re sharing might be shocked to discover how much of their per-sonal information is publically available. I tested this theory on my mum, who I wouldn’t describe as a sophisticated internet user (it wasn’t that long ago she tried to delete text by applying tippex to the screen). Typing her name into website aggregator, [www.spokeo](http://www.spokeo). com, I was able to see her age, mar-ital status, job title, phone number, email address, home address, the value of her home and several photos of what it looks like from outside.
Consciously or not, we are all sharing far more information online than ever before; 571 new websites are created every minute; Facebook has over one billion users; and 340 million tweets are sent every day. To really put matters in context, it was only three years ago that people didn’t have ipads.
The ‘overshare’ is a natural by-product of the new digital land-scape. An extreme example is the infamous Anthony Weiner sexting scandal, which saw the US Con-gressman send a sexually sugges-tive picture via Twitter to all of his followers, as opposed to just the one girl it was meant for.
Even messages posted deliber-ately can quickly be regretted, such as the image GoDaddy CEO posted of him having proudly shot an ele-phant in Zimbabwe, cuing outrage from PETA and a campaign to close down GoDaddy accounts. Or when Kenneth Cole tweeted a promotion about their new collection but took advantage of the unrest in Egypt by using the #Cairo hashtag and seem-ingly making light of the situation. Even a swift apology was incapable of undoing all the harm.
For family offices, the risk of social media causing harm is even greater. First, there’s the reputa-tional implications of all members of the family having the means to broadcast unfiltered to the world. “Twitter divorces,” whereby spouses air their dirty laundry in 140 character messages, vividly illustrate the embarrassment that can be inf licted.
Online safety
Security issues are also an obvious worry. Revealing addresses, where children go to school and details of the family’s whereabouts, can be enough to create a kidnap risk. An excited tweet from a child about their forthcoming holiday is all that’s needed to announce an unoc-cupied home.
Plus the children of high-pro-file parents can be specifically tar-geted, with people looking to elicit private information setting up false accounts in the names of the chil-dren’s friends. The children quite naturally believe they are sharing with a confidant as opposed to a journalist or investigator.
Against that backdrop, it’s no sur-prise, therefore, that the best brains in Silicon Valley and our less glam-orous English counterpart, Silicon Roundabout, are striving to create ways to help people remove per-sonal information from the web. There has already been a f lurry of apps like ‘Last Night Never Hap-pened,’ ‘Deleteme Mobile’ and ‘Tweet Cleaner’ aimed at helping people undo the harm caused by an unthinking post.
Forgotten rights
Lagging slightly behind the com-mercial activity, EU lawmakers are developing a legal ‘right to be for-gotten.’ Due to come into force in 2014, the EU’s General Data Protec-tion Regulation states personal data must be deleted when the individual withdraws consent or the data is no longer necessary and there is no legitimate reason for an organisa-tion to keep it. But the powers that be in England are unsure about it.
The UK’s chief objection to the EU move is that unrealistic expec-tations will be created by the idea of a ‘right to be forgotten.’ In reality the proposals will have a relatively limited impact on the way data spreads, or is traded, across web-sites. Hence the Ministry of Jus-tice’s pronouncement that: “The title raises unrealistic and unfair expectations of the proposals…the reasonable steps required by the draft regulation would promise much but deliver little.”
Whether the new regulation is enacted over here seems unlikely. In any event, neither law nor commerce can be relied on to pro-vide the full solution to the new challenges family offices face from the ever-evolving digital landscape.
Instead, the answer lies in educa-tion. All social media users need to appreciate nothing can ever be for-gotten once posted online.
A digital tattoo is created the moment t he ‘send ’ but ton is pressed. It’s perfect ly possible to live a private life while using social media.
Things to remember
Personally I’m an addict, using LinkedIn to connect with people I know, Facebook to stalk people I used to know and Twitter to follow people I want to know. But some basic guidelines are essential.
Firstly, keep on top of the ever-changing privacy settings to not get caught out. It’s all too common for private messages to suddenly become public because of an unan-nounced change in the site’s terms and conditions.
It is also just as important to be aware of the privacy settings of those around you. I can have the strongest privacy settings in place but they count for nothing if my best-friend is zealously blogging all of our nights-out.
Thirdly, be aware of what material currently exists about you online. Particularly on accounts that are no longer being used, such as old MyS-pace accounts and online dating profiles (surely I can’t be the only one?!). It’s irrelevant if these sites are password protected as any jour-nalist can acquire a password.
This kind of audit is especially important when someone not used to the public spotlight is brought into the family. The first thing the media will do is a social media trawl. Damaging stories can easily be avoided with just a bit a foresight.
Next it’s unwise to have a cyber-vacuum around your online pro-file i.e. having no presence at all. Even for those who are deeply against any publicity, it’s better they own domain names and social media handles before someone else snatches them up and either starts posting in their name or tries to extort them if they do ever want to buy them. Of course, there’s ways of dealing with both problems but it’s better to avoid the issue in the first place.
Finally, social media accounts must be secured against hacking. Huge harm can be done if an account is hijacked, as seen when the Associated Press’s account was recently sabotaged and tall tales of explosions in the White House caused shockwaves around the world within minutes.
One vital (if a little tedious) tip that everyone in your house (and the White House) should remember is maintaining unique passwords for different accounts.
As tiresome as it is to recall a random array of letters, numbers and punctuation marks when log-ging in from everything from your bank account to Ocado, passwords without a fair smattering of !!!s, $$$s and £££s, are weak and essen-tially worthless.
With these essential principles in place, family offices and those who advise them should have nothing to fear from TMI (too much informa-tion) curse.
