Hey gang, just a little public service announcement from your very-nearly-cholera-free (though in retrospect smoked marlin n’ grits last night was perhaps a shade too adventurous) pal Plummy:
Be mindful when posting your medical information online.
Now obviously when Twistie asked readers to post their strangest diagnoses, she wasn’t mining your information for blackmail fodder to be stored in the bowel-iest bowels of Miss Plumcake’s Volcano Dream Lair until such a time as your creepy skin condition/antiquated disease/atrophied Siamese twin can be monetized for personal gain. And no, that’s not just because Miss Plumcake’s Volcano Dream Lair doesn’t technically exist. Although it totally should.
I’m proud of the unusually tight-knit relationships this kooky blog has engendered over the years, and when you post and comment with the same invisible friends year after year it’s easy to drop your guard. No big deal, except you’re not just having a casual chat here on the island of misfatty toys; you’re publishing, and when you’re on a public blog like this one, there’s no way to unring the Google Cache bell. It’s like herpes and menudo breath: You’re stuck with it for life.
Twistie’s ethical and I’m lazy, but there’s nothing saying nefarious nogoodniks –or worse, your employer’s (or potential employer’s) human resource department– won’t use their Google Fu to track down every scrap of laundry you’ve left draped around the internet’s chandeliers, dirty or otherwise if it’s of benefit to them. Illegal and unethical to be sure, but don’t think it doesn’t happen. And if comment tracking isn’t possible now, who’s to say it won’t be neat new feature in the coming years?
If you’d like me to delete your comments in the name of damage control, shoot me an email and consider it evaporated, just you know, be careful out there. And while we’re at it, you might want to get a cream for that rash.
Seriously, thanks Plummie, sometimes we forget that the WW Web is actually the WW bathroom wall, when you put something up, you have no control over who will see it and how they may choose to use the information…too many people are forgetting this in the days of “XXX just checked in at XXX” on Facebook.
And I LOVE me some WWII propoganda posters, but I’m weird that way :-))
Comment by Thea — April 25, 2012 @ 11:33 am
That is so nice of you. I’m a little paranoid, so I just assume everything I post can and/or will be spied upon.
Comment by megaera — April 26, 2012 @ 6:05 am
Ha. I work in the field of international development, where weird diseases are a job hazard. The fungus in my digestive tract was the object of great amusement around my office. So were my two bouts of E. Coli.
Actually when the doctor told me I had a fungus in my stomach, I took out my Spanish/English dictionary because I thought I couldn’t possibly have understood that word right. And then the dictionary told me yes, indeed, it was fungus.
Comment by Erin — April 28, 2012 @ 4:39 pm