What we can learn from the Facebook Poke and Snapchat Saga

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Posted 126 days ago by Charlie Sanchez

Late in December it emerged that users of Facebook’s Poke app and the popular image messaging app Snapchat were putting themselves in a bit of a pickle.

What is unique about these apps is that they came with the promise that whatever images and videos they sent would self destruct 10 seconds after being viewed.

You can imagine what happened next. Boys will be boys and girls will be girls; the mass messaging of various body parts ensued, and I’m not talking forearms and finely turned ankles.

After all, what harm could be done? Well it turns out, quite a bit.

After not very much digging it emerged that it was possible to permanently store received files on both Poke and Snapchat.

While no doubt fixes will be incoming, it’s important to remind ourselves that these days “stupid is for life”. Sadly, gone are the days when being ridiculous and naked were kept in a little photo album in a draw. These days it’s all out there, which can be a wonderful thing, or a pretty bad one.

There’s an obvious lesson here so I’m not going to spell it out. When it comes to technology, there will always be new, “safe” ways to do it and just like Facebook Poke and Snapchat, people will learn how to crack them.

And as far as New Year’s resolutions go, “I will not send people pictures of my naked body” can’t be that hard to keep, surely?

Do you use Facebook Poke or Snapchat? Did you send or receive risqué images or videos? Are you concerned that people might have kept them? Let me know here on the blog or on Facebook.

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Anonymous

I have 2 earlyteen grandsons, & they keep their facebook open to everyone even their parents. The worst thing is , they think there is nothing to hide!!!! DAHHHH ! these also early or pre teen girls are posting really risque or provocative video calls & picks & say what is the difference between under garmets or their bathing suits?????? & honestly what can we say it is basically all the same thing these days , half the time you cant tell the difference, but what you can’t get through their heads is the difference, difference in the message the pic are giving without saying a word !!! The implications these sites have years latter when their children say, Hey mom what were you doing in pic or video??????Because as they say once you put pen to paper it is just a bout written in stone , it can be out there FOREVER !!!!!!! I guess all we can do is keep them informed when bad thing do come out of it, and as we all say I just prey it’s not one of our kids or their friends , & now you have all the pictures of our babies & family out there in syberspace for any one to digitally alter these pics , which is sooooo easy o take the most inocent picture in the world & turn it into to something SERIOUSLY BAD, & WRONG but once it is out there , you virtually have nooooooo control over it, & it is distroying many lives unfortunately!!!
http://www.facebook.com/jmaver John Maver

Even if they didn’t let you save the videos, you can always screenshot them. And once someone has an image of you, they can photoshop it to tell whatever story they want. Many, many cases of lives being ruined by one stupid shared picture. It just isn’t worth it.

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