Following the article wrote by Jenny on social networks “You sure you want your whole social network to read that?!”, I am just going to relate on the story that created a big buzz all over France about this French journalist who revealed the all about the life of a random French Facebook user thanks to the information he got through the different social networks this person was on and so…to conclude, in exposing his daily life in public.

His holidays, his friends, his job…The newspaper “Le Tigre” has published all the possible information that he published himself online.

The very first concept was really simple – create the newspaper portrait of a random internet user thanks to the information that he found on the online social media platforms (Copains d’avant, Facebook, Flickr…)

And this is how the journalist Raphael Meltz starts his article, straight to the point: “You are the unlucky one to be the first Google portrait from “the Tigre” experience”.

In this long article (that you can find on the Le Tigre website – only in French unfortunately but will probably think of translating it), one learns that “Marc L” (this is how he is called on all his networks) is an architect, where he has been on holiday (Bombay, Montreal..), who are his last lovers (Laura, Sandy) and his passions.  There are even some notes about the place where he works (the big boss is not going to be happy!).  In short, we know almost everything about his private life – or shall I just say public life.

Marc L detailed how devastated he was by the article. He claimed:  “I can’t sleep anymore. I am really annoyed with the journalists. All the information that I published online was for the people who surround me. I’m really feeling bad and have a lot of troubles sleeping. Besides being myself concerned by the story, I feel also really annoyed for all the people who are part of my contacts and whose the identities have also been revealed – mostly with regards to my personal love life…”

Pretty natural, as we learnt from the article that Marc loves women with “small boobs, short hair and nice long legs”…

Nevertheless, Marc L recognised himself the mistake of having created his own Big Brother space through the web and will surely keep an eye now on what personal information he will be sharing on the web.  Probably the most positive side of the story is that more people are informed now of the danger of exposing too much their lives.

He added however having this big regret: “I would rather not have been the one picked.” …Obviously!!! Who would like this happening to them?

That is just leading me to think twice again about the phenomenon of social networks, for which we are all the specimens in the laboratory…

Millions of people around the globe use these tools everyday without realising that someone is probably following your every move and could actually – and as this article proves – destroy your life!

Don’t smile – you could be the next victim!

Risks of confusion between public and private life on the web?  Le Tigre has underlined the seriousness of this issue.

However, while writing the article in the form of a friendly letter (“Hey Marc, you’re all right? You don’t know me it is true, but me I know you really well!”), the journalist exposes in a provocative way how any user can be the target of cyber-criminals that can easy find out where you leave, with who you go out…etc. and use that information to commit crimes.

I will end with a simple question: When will the internet be controlled and measures will be taken to protect the privacy of individuals?