This brief blog post is a wonderful example of how Internet defamation can be self-inflicted. You’ll have to click the link below in order to see the images, but it is a the search results from a program, made by two guys, that search social networking profiles. In the images we see people claiming to play hooky, i.e. skip work. The author says of this:

Most online reputation management issues are self-inflicted. Before you hit that “publish” button, think about whether you’d be upset if what you’re about to say ever made it in front of your spouse/parents/kids/boss/pastor.

This is the truth. We must remember that anything we put on the Internet is basically made public, or it could be made public in the future. All it takes is your pastor or employer to do a social networking search, like this one, for your name and find out that you played hooky last friday.

http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2010/05/hey-everyone-im-about-to-ruin-my-online-reputation.html