Experimental website exposes your embarrassing Facebook updates

Remember Candid Camera, the show where people are caught in their unguarded moments? This may well be its equivalent on social networking website Facebook.

 

The site "We know what you're doing" (www.weknowwhatyouredoing.com) gathers self-incriminating status updates on Facebook and posts them openly for all to see, all in one site.

 

Status messages - and rants - that are shown on the site range from rants against bosses to giving out phone numbers online. They are divided into four categories:

 

- Who wants to get fired?

- Who's hung over?

- Who's taking drugs?

- Who's got a new phone number?

 

Its creator, 18-year-old British web developer Callum Haywood, said the site is an "experiment" that pulls data from Facebook's Graph application programming interface (API) and displays the status updates accordingly.

 

"People have lost their jobs in the past due to some of the posts they put on Facebook, so maybe this demonstrates why. Efforts have been made to remove any personal data from the results, such as the actual phone numbers, surnames, etc. The data is still easily accessible from the API, the filters have been put in place to protect the site from legal issues," Haywood said.

 

He added that while the people whose posts were featured may not want that information published, they had their account privacy settings to blame.

 

The site reinforces the message that Facebook users should think twice before publishing status updates containing "potentially risky material" as "Public," Haywood said.

 

Also, Haywood said the problem is no longer with Facebook, whose privacy controls he said are very good.

 

Instead, he said the problem is "how people simply don't understand the risks of sharing everything."

 

Meanwhile, Haywood maintained all data displayed on the site is pulled directly from public posts on Facebook, and is not censored.

 

But he also said those who wish to have their posts removed from the site can delete them from Facebook first, then they will stop appearing on the site.

 

An alternative is to contact Haywood "to block any posts by you from appearing." — TJD, GMA News