Facebook, Hatebook and antisocial media

• A hater in my town. I registered on Hatebook to research this blog. The site is a spoof of Facebook, the social networking juggernaut. What isn’t so tongue in cheek is the profile I discovered of a guy across town. His blurb would make Hitler smile. It’s too vile to quote. Books he hates: the Koran.
• A dead girl. Thirteen-year-old Megan Meier hanged herself Oct. 16, reportedly after being jerked around online by a cute boy named Josh. He turned out to be a totally virtual MySpace cyber crush allegedly concocted by a family in Megan’s Dardenne Prairie, Mo., neighborhood.
• An unpleasant holiday surprise. As detailed by the Washington Post, newlywed Sean Lane of Waltham, Mass., went online and bought his wife a diamond ring for Christmas. Facebook’s new social advertising engine made the news visible to more than 700 of Sean’s friends, co-workers, former classmates and acquaintances – plus his wife. Just to put a fine point on it, the alert said the jewelry was lovingly selected from that Tiffany’s of the tight-fisted, Overstock.com. This incident was unintentional but shows that social media, like a kid hitting puberty at age seven, is maturing rather quickly. (Facebook has tweaked the advertising engine to post notices only when the buyer opts in.) 

I have no solutions. Haters, bullies and gossips existed long before the computer. Just something to consider the next time you log on.