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.'"

Comments

Re:Solution: don't join facebook?

[seededfury]

I once had thirteen accounts on myspace to create my own social network within the site. It is a lot of fun sharing secrets with myself

Re:Private Lives Private

[ShieldW0lf]

If you don't want people to know about it, don't do it. If you're going to do it, don't expect us to stick our heads in the sands just to help you out.

As far as I'm concerned, privacy is for liars and conspirators. I don't want anyone to have it, and I like the way that people are slippery sloping to the point where this illusion is too unbelievable to bother continuing to maintain.

This is a good thing.