The online world can be a creepy and dangerous place. Comedian Jack Vale proved this with his social media prank/experiment where he searched on different social media sites like Twitter and Instagram for geo-tagged posts (showing the location) near him, got some information on the poster, went up to them out on the street and told them the information he had just learned about them. The result, as seen in the video, was a lot of freaked out people. It was funny because people were putting their information on the internet which is public- there is an option to not include your location- and they still thought that he was invading their privacy.
Even though the reactions of the people in the video can be funny, if you really think about it, It's actually pretty scary to know how easily a random stranger can find out so much about you using only the internet. Social media sites like Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter and Instagram are great tools that allow us to search for and connect with people we know, but the thing that makes it so great unfortunately also make it pretty bad; people who we don't know can access our personal information too. Many people are putting too much in their online profiles unaware of the risks, and even with privacy settings, nothing is truly private on the internet. Social media is especially dangerous for teens; often times they tweet stuff or post photos that are sometimes inappropriate, just to catch people's attention. Putting these things out publicly allow easy access for dangerous people like stalkers and predators. This is why people should learn about the risks that come with social media and think twice when choosing what kind of information they want to share.
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