Tech dude runner wrote:
I also seem to recall seeing an article mentioning how sports organizations such as the NFL and perhaps USATF are now offering classes to athletes about how to use social networks, in the same vein as offering young NFL players classes on financial management. Some things they are taught include:
- When posting a photo or video in a public place, wait at least a day and only post when you are no longer at that location.
- Do not post photos/videos from any location you frequent.
- Do not post photos/videos showing where you live.
- Do not post anything showing your phone number (some athletes made this mistake when it was popular to post photos of text message exchanges with other athletes and famous people), documents showing personal information, etc.
- How to be careful about who is in your social network. If you have a connection who ends up posting a photo with you outside your home with the caption "Here I am with my bestie neighbor outside our apartment building", a big piece of your privacy just went out the window.
- How to deal with rude or aggressive comments. When should you block someone vs when you should just ignore them, etc.
- How to remain politically neutral.
- How to use each particular social network. Exactly what features are available. How to enable/disable things like DM, etc. Each social network works differently, has different features to support privacy.
- Other things affecting privacy, including what information you give the social network provider itself to create the account.
- Etc, etc, etc. The above likely doesn't cover everything.
You get the idea. Social network use can reveal too much information which can be used by bad actors. Even when following all the above guidelines, strangers can still piece together all the posts to learn an astonishing amount. NFL teams do this when they evaluate draft prospects. Watch the movie "Draft Day" with Kevin Costner, there is a scene where the scouting department is looking at the social network account of the quarterback the team owner wants to draft. If you haven't seen that movie it is quite good. And this is a real thing not just made up for that movie. Teams employ psychologists in those evaluations. When a team is about to offer a college kid a contract for many millions of dollars they want to know everything they can about him.
Perhaps this post will be of use to some of the young athletes who may browse here.
This is captain obvious 101. They teach classes on how to not doxx yourself? I get that a young teen would be careless, but if you grow up with social media, you should figure this stuff out by the time you’re… 15. I guess to be an elite athlete, you need luck, good genetics and naïveté
