Last night I attended the latest Chinwag live even, Dark side of social media. You can listen to the podcast here.
The event was really interesting and seemed to highlight a few interesting points, such as, really this is nothing new, it's just a new medium for the same old stuff.
The solution people came up with were that you either use a bit of common sense, and realise that anyone may be able to see what your posting and therefore don't post up anything damaging about yourself, or use a sock puppet, an alternative persona or alias like many authors have been doing for years.
The other option is that we cut each other some slack, and perhaps this is something that will come when the myspace generation are employers, because everyone has had embarrassing moments, it's just easier to find them now.
Congrats to Chinwag for another cracking event!