Imagine this: Youπre living your life the same way you do everyday. You got up this morning, had your bowl of special K, got dressed and went to school. Youπre going from class to class talking to your friends like you always do. Then, sixth period you get called down to the office. Your confused because you donπt think you did anything wrong but scared because you only go to the office when your in trouble. You get there and sit down. The principal walks in and says you have a very important issue to discuss and whips out picture printed off your myspace. Now your expelled, so long high school. You may think that sounds extreme and unfair, which it is, but sadly it is the truth. Schools and businesses are both violating the human right to privacy by judging people by their myspace or facebook without even really knowing them. First, having a myspace or a facbook means that you have enough trust in the community not to judge you at first glance. Facebook and Myspace are supposed to be communities on the web where people are there for each other, and you have the opportunity to make new friends in your web community. Sadly, this is not the case because judgmental people make wrong assumptions about you based on your myspace. These judgmental people miss out on opportunities to make friends because they are basing how they feel about someone through a picture which makes the world a more hostile environment and less of a community. In addition, just because there is a picture of you at a party on your myspace or facebook, that doesnπt mean you were drinking at that party, so its wrong for someone to call you an alcoholic based on your picture. Lastly, you are not being fair to the person you are judging or yourself if you base your opinion of someone on their myspace or facebook. You are breaking the trust of that person and cheating yourself of a potential friend. More schools and businesses need to embrace facebook and myspace and use it as a tool to meet people and then become acquainted with them. If the world is going to become a community, the pre-judging and prejudices gathered from myspace and facebook have to stop.

Have you ever had a face to face talk with Britney Spears? I certainly have not and Iπm betting neither have you, but chances are you have some negative opinion of her. Sheπs a bad mom who drops her kids and runs around naked, thatπs what the tabloids and internet pictures will tell you. What they wonπt tell you is the kind, fun-loving girl Britney can be and how she really does love her kids. She will let her guard down for five seconds and Perez Hilton will snap a picture and put it on his blog, putting up a caption about how horrible she is. This is what happens with facebook and myspace to normal, everyday people as well. They let their guard down and someone takes a picture and puts it up and then people who have never met this person form an opinion and they donπt even know who they are. Jewel says in her song Daddy, ≥I Drink lots of black coffee and I smoke like a chimney and yes, I left the refrigerator door half open, Daddy. What's that say about me?≤ The lyrics she uses donπt directly apply but her point is still strong for myspace and facebook, she proves you are not always what you may seem. In conclusion, just because youπre seen at a party doesnπt mean youπre a party animal or that you love beer, it just happened; it doesnπt define who you are and doesnπt say much about you.

Today more and more kids are going to parties and not drinking. This is because today more teenagers have cars then ever before and know it is irresponsible to drink and drive. In addition, according to Washington Attorney General, 83 percent of twelve to seventeen year-olds do not drink and teen drunk-driving fatalities are down 67 percent nationwide since 1982, so there is a good chance that just because you are at a party you are not drinking, especially if you know you will be driving home. Also, you can not be sure that the picture you are looking at is accurate. With Photoshop and countless image editing programs you could easily alter any picture you wanted from putting your head on Carmen Electraπs body to putting a pyramid of Coors Light cans in the background. There are so many ways to turn a picture against someone because you donπt like them or are in a fight and when people are looking at your facebook they arenπt considering that, and just make false assumptions. In some cases you are not thinking down on someone, but thinking they are better then they actually are. If you see altered pictures of someone on their myspace where they took of those extra 10 pounds that the ≥camera adds≤, you may think they are a hottie and then be sadly mistaken when you meet them. All these factors go to show you that you should not judge someone based on their myspace of facebook pictures because you donπt know enough about the person and you may have an inaccurate bias in your head.

Instead of using myspace and facebook to judge and convict people, we should use it the way it was intended to be used, to make friends and develop a greater sense of community with others. You are supposed to meet someone online or see their myspace and then meet them in person and talk to them and form an opinion after you meet them. At the University of Brighton, they have developed a facebook-like program called Elgg which teachers and students both use, not to get each other in trouble, but for academic help and to form a better relationship, they use it for the right reasons. While other schools are outlawing myspace and facebook and blocking them and finding pictures of students to get them in trouble, this school has taken a brave step in the opposite direction, and will hopefully start a trend. William Russell Shaver of Mocksville was fired from his teaching job and asked to leave his volunteer firefighting position because on his myspace it was noted that he practiced Wicca and his wife was bisexual. William was a fine fire-fighter and loved his job so was it really fair to him? What these people did was form a prejudice against people who practice Wicca and are different and fired him which was not fair, and as stated by Rudinger who wrote in an e-mail ≥this inhibits free speech on the Internet." In conclusion, people need to trust each other, people who put things on their myspace need to trust they will not be judged and people who are looking at these pages need to be able to have an open mind and realize everyone is different and that you canπt be against someone you donπt even know because that is ludicrous. We need to turn things around and look for the good in people, not search for reasons to judge them and to fire them from their jobs.

Therefore, people have a right to a myspace and facebook and they have a right not to be judged solely on that piece of information. This is similar to the patients in One Flew Over the Cuckooπs nest. They are all staying in this ward just because they talk or look a little funny, so before people get to know them they just assume they are crazy. The people in the ward have good hearts and donπt deserve to be judged by anyone who doesnπt know them. Then, the Nurse judges the patients because she assumes they are all stupid and treats them like they are because she doesnπt know who they really are because she wants them to be less smart then she is so she dumbs them down in her head and has a low opinion of them because she doesnπt take the time to get to know them. Lastly, if you judge people, you miss out on so many opportunities. The girl with the red cup and the nose ring covered in tattoos may be interested in the same music and clothes you are, but looking at your pictures you assumed she was a loser when she had so much to offer. In judging people based on their myspace of facebook, you are only degrading your peers and cheating yourself and having an opinion that is inaccurate and invalid.

≥And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience; or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms; or to raise standing armies, unless necessary for the defense of the United States, or of some one or more of them; or to prevent the people from petitioning, in a peaceable and orderly manner, the federal legislature, for a redress of grievances; or to subject the people to unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons, papers or possessions.≤ Uncle Sam does not lie to his fellow Americans. We all should not have a Facebook. We all need some privacy. Privacy does not mean we are not ourselves, by keeping our privacy we have the ability to think and work without outside interference. Also, by keeping our privacy we protect our possessions and our thoughts and we keep the government in a place it should be, out of our lives. Recently Facebook has let everyone know that they can monitor what we buy, whom we buy it from, and whom we buy it for. If that helps develop you character, personality, and your life, then I donπt think we should be friends.

Privacy builds as much character as a bricklayer lays bricks. People who use Internet services such as Facebook or MySpace are often posers in a lot of ways. They like to pretend they are someone in order to be who they want to be and make friends who are like what they wish to be like. Also, these people waste time making a false image when they can be building up real character. According to an article, kids in-between the ages of 12-17 spend 6 times as much on services such as facebook than they do reading. People are using these sites and they are not building any real character by experiencing intriguing new concepts and ideas from novels and articles that help build up a persons thought. Furthermore, not only do these sites waste time, they make it so you try to conform to other people likes and dislikes in order to fit in. By holding your privacy you make your own, well thought out conclusions on topics and you become your own person, and not societies person. Therefore, having your privacy and keeping it will lead to independent and unique thoughts without common ideologies warping what you think.

Using social websites doesnπt only take away from your individuality, but it also promotes lying. According to http://www.caydel.com/study-shows-that-canadian-teens-are-unaware-of-internet-dangers/, %70 of the people who have sent pictures to someone they have met online and never met, have either send or received a picture that was altered or not them at all. Friends of yours and mine have lied on the Internet as well. Looking at my own MySpace, I can see that a lot of my friends have lied about there ages. Furthermore, the affects of these social sites can be seen in your life and the lives around you. Having privacy helps promote your character, your character will be developed and you wont have to lie. You can hold an intelligent conversation in real life settings and you can have a life while being yourself.

The worst thing that privacy does for us is protecting us from the government. Facebook used the Internet to control what advertisements we see and they see what we o everyday without us knowing what they are doing. Employees could be checking in on our credit card numbers every time we sign in. If the social sites are doing this to make money, then the government will use it to control the ≥security≤ of our country. By keeping our privacy we protect ourselves from being controlled. A new program known as the wikifinder is already showing us what the government is doing. A recent search showed that a rep in the white house had changed info on President Bushπs life in college. A different search showed statistics on an oil spill drastically changed by a rep within an Exxon Mobile office building. We put all of our information out there and it will come back to haunt each and every person who does it. Donπt do anything stupid, Big Brother is watching. Privacy builds character, promotes healthy living and proper morals, and it protects us from the government having a mental control over us.

Lastly, privacy helps us by making us. Nothing can go wrong with privacy. You keep you business in your office. You have morals and principle in what you do. You keep what is important to you close to your heart and you donπt act different to impress people. You have better social skills and can interact in the world will independence and individuality. Your life will improve and you can be what you want, without everyone having to know about it.