Social Networks = Tattoos?

So the backlash begins.  Helen Popkins of MSNBC writes:

Unlike all those kids in a recent New York magazine article about Generation Y’s online openness, I know how the Internet works. And how it works is a lot like those tattoos you young gentiles are getting all over your bodies — the ones you know in your soul you’ll never regret.

Except unlike those tattoos that, turns out, don’t look so good when faded on sagging skin, you can’t erase your Internet imprints with skin grafts. Or anything. Your innocent MySpace hijinx never go away. For the rest of your natural life, they remain just a few clicks away, waiting to be discovered, misinterpreted, and abused.

The basic argument is that the free-flow of information associated with Web 2.0 (social networks, blogs, etc.) is detrimental to lives viz a viz: career advancement, relationships, etc.

There are a couple of things I have to say about this:

• Only stupid people would post publicly what they don't want others to know. Simple premise isn't it? When you post a drunken picture of you on the Internet – the most extensive medium of communication the world has ever seen – expect other people to see it (this includes employers, future girl/boyfriends and any curious passer-by.
• Actually, Web 2.0 is reducing the hypocrisy in society.  Within a generation, the youths who today are comfortable with expressing themselves online will be in positions to scoff at the antiquated way of thinking where sharing candid images of your private life is taboo. Wouldn't there be something wrong if a company can have raucous parties that included 'dwarf-tossing' and still screen candidates based on their Myspace profiles? Let's face it. People are humans. Stuff happens. To profess anything else is silly.
• Is there such a thing as too much information? Yes. But like any other technology, nay-sayers are focusing on how stupid people use the technology instead of all the ways that the technology provides new ways to work, interact and socialize. Focus on the benefits, stupid. Expression is just a couple of steps away from creativity. And it's about time that the Creative Age starts to kick in.
• Frankly, I'm stoked to see the human faces behind the mass of humanity.  If we all acted how prospective employers and our pastors wanted us to act, we'd be boring automatons in the mold of Ned Sanders. It's kind of liberating to see all the differences, warts and all, of people expressed publicly.