The Dangers of Oversharing on the Internet

Since this is a topic that was recently brought up on this blog, and because some people seem to think it not so big of a deal if people “overshare” information online, I’d like to take the time to contribute a submission about an experience I had many years back. The mods are welcome to post this as anonymous if they want.

It took place when I was 14 years old, which is 14 years ago at this point, but even now it still haunts me and to this day. And even though I am a full-fledged adult I am still reluctant to share a lot of information online and trust people because of this.

For starters, behind the veil of online anonymity, anyone can be anything. Any name, any gender, any age. Literally, anything.

Yes, some of you might roll your eyes, but it’s true. This pertains highly to people with BYF pages as well, because let me tell you something: If a net predator REALLY wants to get their target, they’re not going to be honest about who they are. A dedicated net predator will learn about you. Your interests, your habits, your hobbies. They’ll lie about their age, about their appearance. They’ll even send pictures of some random person they find online to hide their true face.

I know this from personal experience. Back in my Neopets days (yeah, the cringe is real), I was one of those people who “over shared” information. I’d been told not to. I’d been warned SO many times not to trust people online. But I disobeyed, and it came with a steep price.

I had many friends on Neopets, some IRL and some made online. And over time of talking to these people, I came to trust them. Enough, so, that I began to overshare personal information. I’d get online and complain about my teachers, about my classmates, and even talk about my extracurricular activities.

Well, that seems relatively harmless right? Because really, there are a LOT of people out there who share the same last names, so the teachers I talked about could have been anywhere within North America. And my extracurricular activities weren’t anything out of the ordinary.

But here’s the thing. Anything you post online comes from an IP address, and that address can be traced no matter what site you’re on. And the thing with net predators is that they usually have the means to obtain that IP address. And that address might not pinpoint your EXACT location down to street address, but it can locate you down to your city.

And when these people know personal details of your life, like your activities or the names of your teachers or classmates, it’s not hard to start looking for those people within the city. And from there, it’s not hard to get hold of your information like your home address or your phone number. And I shouldn’t need to detail what follows.

Yes. I had an experience with being stalked by an online predator due to oversharing information. I had never, ever, given out my real name online OR my home address. But it mattered not, they were able to find me anyway based on the information I’d shared.

It started out mild; the person did not approach our home, instead opting to send an order of flowers addressed to me, but with no sender name. The flower shop that they were from said the order was placed by phone, and refused to give us the details of the buyer due to confidentiality. So, doing the only thing we knew to do, we tossed them into the garbage and the flower shop not to accept any more orders for our address.

The mystery was short lived, my “friend” on Neopets wrote me a few days after asking me what I thought of the flowers. Naturally, I was scared and went straight to my parents, who promptly got involved and I don’t really know a lot of what went on because I didn’t really get to participate. After that, with Mom’s help I reported the user to the staff, sent them a message to leave me alone, and blocked them. Neopets was quick to ban them, but all they did was make another account. This, of course, led to less pleasant messages from them, and further reports and blocks and bans. After several banned accounts, it appeared that they gave up.

The next thing that happened was a phone call. Mom herself had an online friend whom she was in contact with via phone, so the night the call came she thought it was her friend. When she found out it was this user, she immediately hung up and called the police, who told her how to report the number.

They called once a day for a few days, I never answered the phone because I was scared to. Mom reported the number each time it was called, though we were never really sure if the reports worked because the number was masked.

After several continued attempts of this person calling our home and getting into arguments and making threats towards my parents, arrangements were made to let me stay at one of my relatives’ homes for a while and I was told to stay off of the internet entirely until this issue got sorted out. Mom still won’t tell me exactly what went down during the days I was at my relatives’ place, but I do know that the police did come to our place a few times, and apparently they finally did catch the creep.

Long story short: The internet, specifically Tumblr in this case, is not a reliable diary or venting space. It’s not a “safe space” and no matter how hard you try to make it one, you won’t succeed. This is a public platform accessible by millions of people around the globe, and you posting a BYF page isn’t going to stop people from reading your blog’s content and spreading it around. And from your posts, your personal information can be extracted.

The only person who’s responsible for your safety and comfort online is YOU. If you over share, you’re not protecting yourself. And just so you know, even a private, password-protected side blog can be hacked and forcefully exposed with the right knowledge and tools.

If you’ve had a bad day and you absolutely need to get it out of your system to feel better, the safest option is a paper-based diary, usually one with a lock and key if you’re scared of anyone finding and reading the contents. Personal information in a diary is less likely to be spread and misused than personal information posted online.

This is why oversharing is bad, and why people are against it. I had to learn this the hard way, and I’m sharing this experience because I don’t want people ending up in the same situation and making the same mistakes I did when I was a teenager.