As you can guess, having been slandered on Facebook has made me think a lot about the experience on this website.

For the positive aspects Facebook has, catching up with old friends, rekindling lost friendships and keeping in touch with people who are far away, pretty much anyone can start writing anything without you knowing.  I recently witnessed two friends, one a democrat, the other a republican, duking it out under my wall.  As fiercely independent as I am, I feel this has no place on my territory.

The last experience is rather disturbing.  Someone has been slandering me and the only reason I became aware of it was when another person decided to send me a private email about it.  In other words, all of this is happening without me knowing.

This is one of the dark, negative aspects of Facebook.  Anonymity is easy to hide behind when someone decides to take a stab at you.

From now on, I will treat the website in the following way.  Go to it once a week, check out only the friends who are too far away call and see physically.  Since I want my profile to be seen and open, I have nothing to hide, I won’t limit access, but others might want to think about that in order to avoid what I am experiencing.

Finally, it worries me what the new generations are experiencing with these types of “social networks”.  Sitting behind a chair, clicking, befriending people without seeing them in real-life just isn’t very real… or maybe it is an alternate reality.  Having said this, are they developing social skills?  It is arguable that while they are becoming proficient typists and clickers, their face-to-face social skills are not improving, nor are their speech patterns evolving.

Maybe this is a sign of a new generation or maybe I’m just lucky enough to know two generations, one that speaks and another that writes…

As to the person who wrote this?  It was easy to discover.  I have turned over the case to the police and a lawyer.  The rest?  I wish her light, plenty of Light…