I care about my privacy on Facebook. I like sharing as little as possibly outside of my friends and I don't want to use Facebook to connect to other sites. I may link to my blogs on Facebook, but I don't want Facebook to always know when I do something on another blog.
That said, Instant Personalization is back on Facebook, again. It's opt-out again instead of being opt-in, because Facebook has some sort of really annoying opt-in boner that likes being all up in my business. I don't post on sites using Stalkerbook Connect because I don't was my newsfeed to be filled with all of that idiocy, I barely care about seeing my friend's non-Stalkerbook idiocy on Stalkerbook. If I wanted to read their posts on Gizmodo or The New York Times I'd ask them what their opinion was about that. If I want to see what videos they like on Youtube, I'd subscribe to their channel so I could find their likes easier. I like keeping some aspects of what I do online separate from other aspects of what I do online. The only people who I'm friends with on Facebook are people I know in real life and a few select internet people, then like..3 "celebrities" because they were like "friend me". I don't need everything I do to get back to Stalkerbook, it's bad enough Google know just about everything, at least it doesn't spam the site telling the internet what I'm doing on the internet.
I just figured this would be something of interest to people here, because most everyone everywhere has a Facebook account. I also feel everyone has the right and responsibility to keep track of what gets shared where, and if nothing else, informing on the situation then sharing my possibly alarmist opinion helps the spread of information.
Jasmine P.
Showing posts with label facebook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label facebook. Show all posts
December 16, 2010
June 20, 2010
Sharing as Default is Wrong
If anyone who's reading this paid a drop of attention to the things I linked to back in May and maybe April during the very large Facebook ruckus what I'm saying now will be fairly recognizable and familiar. I was looking on Google to see what's been said about facebook in the news recently, nothing really major about the site, but looking at one site and seeing a sentence I've seen before made this idea click for me.
"In January, CEO Mark Zuckerberg had said that his company was updating its systems to "reflect what the current social norms are." So when Facebook announced in April that it would automatically enroll users into new features such as Instant Personalization--which handed users' publicly available Facebook info to selected Websites that users visited--the implication was that users' wishes, not the company's bottom line, prompted the move from a largely private system shared only with approved friends to a largely public system that freely gave data to search engines, marketing companies, and anyone else who wanted it." (1)
That entire paragraph makes oh so little sense. If that was the case people would be walking around, in real life, all the time telling people their full name, their age, sexual orientation, etc, all the time. It wouldn't be something discussed in confidence like it is now, it would be introduced as soon as you met somebody. There are actually things I've learned about people from their facebook pages that I'm not sure I knew from conversations. What I'm saying is, how can one site dictate how people are going to act? I don't share everything everywhere. I have different e-mail accounts for different things for a reason. My last name is not visible in full for a reason. I never made a nickname/url thing for a reason. If people want to find me they have to know me, know something about me, or know people who know me. I try to maintain a viable amount of control over my account because I don't know who may stumble across my account at any time. But more simply than that I interact differently in different circles. Who I am in front of my Grandma is not quite who I am in front of friends at school, which is still a bit different from how I act in front of friends from high school, cousins, my brothers, my sister, my father, everyone. I act different around different people, everyone does. Fine, I'll concede; not everyone but many people.
I don't think of that type of subterfuge as lying so much as I think of it as protection. Keeping friends close and enemies closer, but what's acceptable in some circles is not acceptable in all circles. I keep my account fairly locked down so people know can access it already know most of me or I'm comfortable with them being in the confidence of knowing more about me. But, with what I share here and what I don't share the world does not need to know. There are but so many people I'm friends with that don't have some connection with at least one other person I know somewhere.
What I'm saying is, how can sharing be the default if people work so hard to maintain different selves? How I present myself in a class is not how I present myself in a coffee shop. I think that's what bothers me more about seeing faculty outside of the academic situation because there's a certain expectation for one place that's different for another place. People know or expect different things and boiling it all down to what's common on both levels leave me as being very little of me as I try not to confuse or offend one or the other.
When you look at what sites say are the short comings of facebook you'll see what I said reiterated, probably in a more logical fashion. "As everything, Facebook is also used for good and bad activities too. In an interview with Mmegi, some critics launched a backlash against this ubiquitous website of modern civilization. They indicated that Facebook could be bad for one’s health - and wealth, career, personal relationships, living arrangements and reputation. They also asserted to the fact that the site can also be disturbingly addictive. With the issue of possible Facebook addiction comes its abuse." (2)
Everyone had different social circles. The biggest issue with facebook is that it wants to connect all of everyone's social circles in one place. That would be less detrimental in my mind if it was focused on one circle and not all circles. What goes on behind closed doors affects what goes on outside but so much. People's religious beliefs or their thoughts on other people's sexual orientation or political beliefs should not affect their jobs, but with bosses and coworkers knowing more about what their colleagues do over the weekends being more prevalent knowledge facebook is a downfall. It's the downfall to privacy and people don't like that. I understand how pleasant it is to have everything aggregated on one website and not having to shuffle all across the internet to interact with different people, but that would probably be the best step forward for social interaction. Keeping things in their various boundaries and comfort zones would probably be a lot less detrimental in the long run.
Sites/Sources:
1: http://www.pcworld.com/article/199162/can_you_really_trust_facebook.html?tk=hp_new - PC World
2: http://www.mmegi.bw/index.php?sid=10&aid=66&dir=2010/February/Monday15 - Mmegionline
Jasmine P.
"In January, CEO Mark Zuckerberg had said that his company was updating its systems to "reflect what the current social norms are." So when Facebook announced in April that it would automatically enroll users into new features such as Instant Personalization--which handed users' publicly available Facebook info to selected Websites that users visited--the implication was that users' wishes, not the company's bottom line, prompted the move from a largely private system shared only with approved friends to a largely public system that freely gave data to search engines, marketing companies, and anyone else who wanted it." (1)
That entire paragraph makes oh so little sense. If that was the case people would be walking around, in real life, all the time telling people their full name, their age, sexual orientation, etc, all the time. It wouldn't be something discussed in confidence like it is now, it would be introduced as soon as you met somebody. There are actually things I've learned about people from their facebook pages that I'm not sure I knew from conversations. What I'm saying is, how can one site dictate how people are going to act? I don't share everything everywhere. I have different e-mail accounts for different things for a reason. My last name is not visible in full for a reason. I never made a nickname/url thing for a reason. If people want to find me they have to know me, know something about me, or know people who know me. I try to maintain a viable amount of control over my account because I don't know who may stumble across my account at any time. But more simply than that I interact differently in different circles. Who I am in front of my Grandma is not quite who I am in front of friends at school, which is still a bit different from how I act in front of friends from high school, cousins, my brothers, my sister, my father, everyone. I act different around different people, everyone does. Fine, I'll concede; not everyone but many people.
I don't think of that type of subterfuge as lying so much as I think of it as protection. Keeping friends close and enemies closer, but what's acceptable in some circles is not acceptable in all circles. I keep my account fairly locked down so people know can access it already know most of me or I'm comfortable with them being in the confidence of knowing more about me. But, with what I share here and what I don't share the world does not need to know. There are but so many people I'm friends with that don't have some connection with at least one other person I know somewhere.
What I'm saying is, how can sharing be the default if people work so hard to maintain different selves? How I present myself in a class is not how I present myself in a coffee shop. I think that's what bothers me more about seeing faculty outside of the academic situation because there's a certain expectation for one place that's different for another place. People know or expect different things and boiling it all down to what's common on both levels leave me as being very little of me as I try not to confuse or offend one or the other.
When you look at what sites say are the short comings of facebook you'll see what I said reiterated, probably in a more logical fashion. "As everything, Facebook is also used for good and bad activities too. In an interview with Mmegi, some critics launched a backlash against this ubiquitous website of modern civilization. They indicated that Facebook could be bad for one’s health - and wealth, career, personal relationships, living arrangements and reputation. They also asserted to the fact that the site can also be disturbingly addictive. With the issue of possible Facebook addiction comes its abuse." (2)
Everyone had different social circles. The biggest issue with facebook is that it wants to connect all of everyone's social circles in one place. That would be less detrimental in my mind if it was focused on one circle and not all circles. What goes on behind closed doors affects what goes on outside but so much. People's religious beliefs or their thoughts on other people's sexual orientation or political beliefs should not affect their jobs, but with bosses and coworkers knowing more about what their colleagues do over the weekends being more prevalent knowledge facebook is a downfall. It's the downfall to privacy and people don't like that. I understand how pleasant it is to have everything aggregated on one website and not having to shuffle all across the internet to interact with different people, but that would probably be the best step forward for social interaction. Keeping things in their various boundaries and comfort zones would probably be a lot less detrimental in the long run.
Sites/Sources:
1: http://www.pcworld.com/article/199162/can_you_really_trust_facebook.html?tk=hp_new - PC World
2: http://www.mmegi.bw/index.php?sid=10&aid=66&dir=2010/February/Monday15 - Mmegionline
Jasmine P.
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