If you read my commentaries on a regular basis and you are a Facebook fan you will think that I am on a Facebook demolition mission after you read this one. As I stated before, your choices are your choices. I am not writing these commentaries on Facebook to get you to stop using Facebook. I am only making my readers aware of the problems and dangers. It’s your choice, but you should know the facts.

Facebook is a big problem if you want privacy in the real world. If you want the world to know who you are and maybe a lot more, then keep “Facebooking” all you want. Just don’t say that you have never been warned.

If you think I am a disgruntled Facebooker, I would like to set you straight. I am! And I believe I have good reason for that. Understand The Times was maliciously hacked. As I am not a “millennial,” I am not as Facebook-intelligent as I needed to be. When “friends” wanted me to be their “friend,” I was far too naïve and undiscerning. Who wouldn’t want Daffy Duck, Donald Duck, or George Washington as a “friend” on Facebook. Friends indeed! I think you know the rest of the story.

Such was my experience. A so-called friend used the forum to broadcast his agenda and make me look like a complete lunatic. Why not? Isn’t that what you do when you have an agenda to destroy a ministry using the Internet and the social media.

Is it any wonder we have so many young people being bullied and taking their lives because of the social media? Could Facebook, Twitter, or any of the famous social media formats be called into court someday for the role they play in these tragedies? Time will tell.

Now, one example of how one family was impacted and devastated by Facebook, and this is someone we are acquainted with. A member of the family had a Facebook account that was hacked by someone who was obviously a fraud. This person who was hacked, a high school student, tried to contact Facebook to have their account dropped. It was impossible.

The person even went to the R.C.M.P. for assistance. Still nothing happened. Then something happened. A threat was made by the hacker in the name of the person. The hacker, in the name of the high school student, said he was going to duplicate the Columbine massacre. Schools were locked down in several communities and cities.

Obviously, this got the R.C.M.P.’s attention. The event also made national news. Facebook finally responded to the cyber detectives, and the threat was sorted out after computers were confiscated and analyzed at a crime computer lab.

How would you like to be that family and especially the young man who is now a former Facebooker? Do you think that has impacted his life? Do you think something like this could happen to you?

Or what about those personal family photos that are posted? Are there predators online. Are there scammers who use personal identities and profiles to take over accounts?

Do you have Mark Zuckerberg as one of your “friends” on Facebook? If you do, he is no friend of mine. Watch out for Big Brother. He is a lot closer than you think!

I’d like to end with this. Next time someone wants to be your Facebook “friend,” ask yourself, do I even know this person? Or am I just trying to get as many “friends” as possible so I’ll appear to be a very popular person? While I understand that technology can be used for some worthwhile purposes, it can also be used (and often is) in very destructive and harmful ways. Just as we are to use discernment in spiritual matters, shouldn’t we also use discernment in whom we “hang out with” in social media? Your decision on that could have lasting and irreversible effects.

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