The New Facebook: Are We Making Friends or Foes?

Exhibit A:
The new Facebook profile page (this is mine). Frankly, I don't like the makeover. What do you think?

Exhibit B:

Note the circled red part there under "Recent Activity." Those are comments I've left on my friends' pages. Hypothetically speaking, if I write one someone's wall that I opened a bottle of wine at 3:00 because my children were driving me insane I'm wearing the same clothes for the third day in a row, the whole world will find out about it because it will be posted on my own wall. Nice, huh? Yes, I can delete it once I get home to my computer, but still? Makes me not want to comment at all. Or seriously sensor my comments. Which is no fun. Isn't Facebook supposed to be fun? Well look out because next thing you know, you may start losing friends over things you never realized they'd be able to see.

And then this crap? Exhibit C:

Can I just say how much I LOVE seeing my profile photo the size of Mars? Nevermind the personal stuff at the top-- who gives a shit that I was born in New Orleans and have an English degree? And it's so thoughtful of Facebook to randomly choose the most unflattering photos of me to put right at the very top of the page. Makes me want to remove all my photo albums. It's just inconvenient because although I can delete the pictures (I think), I have to be at home at my computer to do it because I'm not all savvy with a fancy pants iPad, iPhone, Crackberry, or smart phone like the rest of you.

What do you think?

A Warning To All Bloggers...Watch Your Backs. And Let's Look Out For Each Other!

**Update: I went to www.myfreecopyright.com and have successfully taken the steps to protect my blog this way thanks to your awesome suggestions. Please see the right side of my blog ------> Working on watermarking the next few days! THANK YOU ALL for your tips, support, and for passing this along so others are aware of what can happen.**

Today I need to give a shout out to an incredible blogger and friend who's got my back--June over at 3! A Charm. Go pay her a visit, tell her I sent you, and thank her for saving my life today. Juney noticed someone had posted a photo of MY girls on HER blog---and passed it off as her own. I immediately went over to check out Missy over at Is It Just Me (the blog has coincidentally been set to private within the last several hours since the shitstorm began) and was terrified to see a picture of Abby & Izzy that I posted only last week. I commented on the post, asked her to remove it immediately. She apologized and deleted the photo. I then learned another bloggy friend, Arizona Mamma over at Our Daze in the Desert, had found several of her posts stolen verbatim and posted on Missy's blog. You can read Shannon's post about it here.

Well guess what, Missy?

You're gonna be sorry, honey. Nobody puts The Mother Load in a corner.

This has me all kinds of riled up and I hope everyone will be careful from here on out. I do not feel threatened, I just think this chick wants to steal our snarkiness and pass it off as her own. It's sad, really. But I can't help being angry. It makes me wonder who else has stolen posts/pics from me and is pretending to be someone he/she isn't?

I am going to have to figure out how to copyright my stuff and watermark my photos. I have a lot to learn. It irks me that there are people out there that would even do something like this.

Before Missy set her blog to private, I noticed a few of my followers are following her. I'd ask you to reevaluate. I'd also ask you to look through her archives and make sure she hasn't stolen from you. I'd ask you how well you really know her.

I'll ask you to talk to your other friends about this. Make them aware of what is going on. I've been basking in the bloggy love and now I'm scared. And I want you to know that this is really ME. I am Erin. I am The Mother Load. I am Abby & Izzy's mommy. I actually exist. And I love to write.

No one is going to take this away from me.

***Deb over at Menopausal New Mom has also just written an excellent post about this....read it here. Thank you, Deb!

***Check out Ian's post about this too. You can read it over at The Daily Dose of Reality.

***Michele over at Finding Trinity posted as well. She was a follower of Missy's. Read her post here.