In the olden times, the post was the way people used to stay in touch with their friends. As technology advanced with time, means of communication became faster and more ubiquitous, and changes in trends of communicating were faster than imagination. Even about 15 years ago most people didn’t use email. And up until about 8 years back, few people knew what a social networking site, like Facebook is and what it can do.

These days, with over 500 million people on the website, Facebook has become the new way to connect with your friends and family. The networks and contacts that one can have spans all over the globe, and includes not only your close friends, but also your classmates, your colleagues, your neighbours, some good-looking person you met at the party the other night, your business partners, and so many more.

This huge network of so called “friends” created a diverse “social map”. Advertising these days is modelled on this social graph, on the simple fact that if you like a product, your close friend with overlapping interests would probably like that same product. A social graph can be studied by sociologists to determine social characteristics and ultimately know where humanity is headed.

With so many users of this ubiquitous technology called the World Wide Web and such an internet superpower such as Facebook, you need be cautious as to who you are interacting with and who you form networks with. Such a liberal technology allows ease for naïve users to interact with many people, but also makes it easier for fraudulent users and imposters to deceive and swindle others with scams, identity theft etc. When interacting with someone on the internet one should be sure of what they are doing and who they are interacting with.

Facebook, MySpace and other social networking sites have tons of fraudulent users. Bill Gates himself had to delete his Facebook account due to spam messages, imposters, and stalkers. Out of the over 500 million users, some people claim that a third of the users are fake, although Facebook claims that this number is baseless and hyperbolised. Whatever the number maybe, searching for most celebrities on Facebook will deliver more than one result for the same person.

Also, some people make fake profiles just as a publicity stunt, or for mischief. There have been cases where obscene photos have been posted as “profile pictures” as a means to visually identify a person online. These type of malicious acts violate the right to privacy and are just immoral. Immoral activities like these are abound on the internet.

When you create a profile on a social networking site, make sure you keep your information safe from those whom you don’t know. There are many customizable privacy settings on these websites, and going through them only takes a few minutes. Social networking sites like Facebook are known to change these setting without properly informing its users and you need to make sure you are up to date in this. Otherwise your information can be read by the wrong people and taken in the wrong way.