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The Implications of a Facebook Society
FloatsomNJetsom writes "The site Switched.com is taking a look at the slow death of privacy at the hands of social media sites such as Facebook and MySpace with a link to a report on the creepy practice of Facebook employees monitoring what pages you look at and a thought-provoking video interview with social media expert Clay Shirky — who says that social networks are profoundly changing our ability to keep our private lives private. 'Eventually, Shirky theorizes, society will have to create a space that's implicitly private even though it's technically public, not unlike a personal conversation held on a public street. Otherwise, our ability to keep our lives private will be forever destroyed. Of course, that might already be the case.'"
It's not like anyone is forcing you to join it or other social networking sites. If you must join it, just have a cursory account and don't update it, ever. Just use it to read your friend's news or whatnot.
You can only lose privacy in this sort of thing if you give the info out to begin with. If you don't do that, you're pretty safe.
Eventually, Shirky theorizes, society will have to create a space that's implicitly private even though it's technically public, not unlike a personal conversation held on a public street. Otherwise, our ability to keep our lives private will be forever destroyed. ...Or you could just refrain from posting the details of your private life to the Internet.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
NOT POST YOUR SHIT ON FACEBOOK!
Seriously, I'll never understand these stories that seem to make it as though you have no choice but to divulge all sorts of personal details online. No, actually not the case. If you wish, you can simply not participate. I personally don't. You can search Myspace, Facebook, and so on, you'll never find anything about me. I don't have a page, don't want a page. I just don't participate in that part of the Internet.
However, even if you do, you can simply not be an idiot about it. It is perfectly possible to create a personal site and give away only the kind of details that you are ok with. There's plenty of information on all of us that is public anyhow, maybe you limit it to just that, or a subset of that. You can have a page and not tell everyone everything about your life. The only problem is if you post intimate details, but expect that only the people who you approve of will see it. That is just, well, stupid. Even if the site claims to have privacy features, don't count on it.
The test I say you should apply is a three factor one: Do you want your mom to know this? Do you want your boss (present and future) to know this? Do you want a creepy sex offender to know this? If the answer to any of those is "no" then DON'T POST IT! Why? Because all three of those people can use the Internet, so all three might come across your page. As such filter your information. Don't post anything you wouldn't want your family to find out, and certainly don't post anything you wouldn't want your work to find out about.
If people just apply a little common sense to it, it really works out ok. You don't have to participate, and if you elect to, if you are just smart bout it and don't do shit like post pictures of you and your friends getting high, you'll probably be just fine.
I dunno...the younger age group there, really does not understand or comprehend how their actions being published on the net can have LONG term consequences. It wasn't that long ago I was in that mode of mind, and when you are in the bulletproof years, you needn't worry about anything.
I think that publishing so called 'bad' behavior (hey, not saying it isn't fun), and all is a bit more glorified these days when you see the likes of Paris and Brittney...getting tons of attention and press for bad behavior. The trouble is, a kid that wants to emulate them, be famous for being famous, doesn't quite see that Paris and Brittney pretty much have unlimited funds available to them. They are wealthy, and do not have to worry about employment, or clearances later in life for good paying jobs.
In the past as a kid, if you got drunk and did something stupid (again, I didn't say it wasn't fun to pull shit like this)...you hoped it wasn't documented more than some pictures you could get the negatives too. YOu could outgrow these episodes, and heck, at the worst...MOVE away from them to another city.
But, what gets on the internet stays on the internet...potentially forever. For anyone to see.
That's just a little scary. A childhood bit of fun, that can harm you for the rest of your life. But, as a kid, you don't think that far ahead.
I think in the next 10 years when we really start seeing the results of this type of thing, we will see a lot of lives that can reach less that what they potentially could have, or more acceptance of a person's past behavior that was a bit childish.
If you think the latter, then ask yourself by today's politicians aren't more frank and public about their past 'drug' indescresions...since we are now starting to get well into the age ranks of people where very few are out there that never even tried any before ever. Nope...still taboo if you want to be in public office.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
By saying that I only use my privacy to hide illegal or 'immoral' activity is total crap. Is taking a shit while reading a book wrong? No. Do I want people to be able to watch me? Hell no. Same goes for having a private conversation with my girlfriend about her bad day at work, sitting in a comfy chair and disappearing into some great music on my headphones, or even jerking off to porn if it suits my fancy. No one else should be privy to that.
Is a more 'open' society what we really want? I don't believe so. The less I know about the randoms out there the better, as most of them would probably just piss me off or make me sick to my stomach. If some idiot wants to put everything they ever do online and others want to watch their every move, label them as the exhibitionist/voyeurs that they are and be done with it. Don't use it as a rallying cry to try and make society more 'open' as if this would suddenly cause world-peace.
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When I destroy the Internet, I am going to start with LiveJournal.