That makes me wonder: is the nature of Facebook inherently distrusted, since they have so much data, and those who use it spend so much of their lives on it, or is the distrust based more on their privacy record?
What if Facebook had a clean privacy record but still collected all of that data from us, in the name of providing the service (of messages, friends, social—your life on the internet, essentially)? Would they still be suspicious?
What I get from this article is that the author doesn't like his friends. Facebook isn't forcing anyone to show too much cleavage during Spring Break. The solution is to get friends who share the same ideals as you.
(Another problem is that you want to grant access to your profile to someone, but you don't necessarily want to see their spam posts. If only there was some way to put people in "circles" or something...)
Today not having a Facebook account is kind of like not having TV was (and in some cases, still is) in the past. We state it proudly and often because there are few enough of us that we feel the need to justify ourselves. (I'm firmly in both camps.) The fact is this article doesn't really seem to add anything new, and trots out the same arguments as dozens of other articles I've seen in the last few months.
That's not to say it's wrong, just kind of redundant.
>> And even though Mr. Zuckerberg has a controlling interest in Facebook, it now has to be accountable to stockholders. The tension between user privacy and monetizing data in service of stock price is a real one—and seems unlikely to fall on the side of users.
That's the thing that botters me the most in this whole thing. If things were already very bleak on the privacy side, that concern has just been blown to smitherings with FB going public. The data mining aggressiveness will only gain momentum as the company is pressured into delivering results to stockholders.
I quit for two reasons,
1) I didn't want Facebook mining my data, and
2) It was dull and a waste of time. It doesn't help my procrastination, and the only things I used it for were the occasional IM, and... investigating people I was interested in getting to know
This article offers very little insight. It's just a collection of facts that most everyone knows, rounded out with a liberal dose of narcissistic filler. I really wish these articles didn't make it to the front page.
"It’s then either a post-modern joke or a Marxist irony (or both at once) that we are able to buy shares of us. But either way, I don’t want you buying shares of me."
I've seen arguments like this made a few times, and I find them fascinating in the way they treat "data about me" and "me" as synonymous. It's like that old story about people who believed taking a photograph would steal your soul.
Facebook will be completely unnecessary in a span. There will be a decentralized solution that accomplishes the "people more connected" goal.
Of my approximately 150 friends on Facebook, it seems like it's only the same 10-15 wankers actually posting things and liking stuff. I suspect that the majority of Facebook users are like me---logging in once and awhile to see if they got a message, not posting anything, then going on with their lives.
She makes an interesting point of an almost Nozickian demoktesis precursor going on here in the Marxist irony...
I'm not sure that the author's reflection of the difference between Google and Facebook holds up. Google Search will get you other places while slurping up all your data, but every other Google property is more akin to Facebook.
Here's a great simple rule -- Don't post anything particularly personal, keep your interests and likes to a bare minimum, delete any "friend" that you would intentionally avoid if you saw in a grocery store.
some beautifully pointed satire from "The IT Crowd"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rNgCnY1lPg
pretty much sums up my feelings...
Not using Facebook is the new not having a television. It doesn't gain you anything, nor does it cost you anything, and somehow everyone who does it thinks that someone else out there cares.
Jeez, dancing grateful dead bears and prop 19---I must have fit in the exact same marketing box as the author
Right on, Elise.
What users demand is what programmers will deliver.
This is why it is so important for users to become educated about computers and networking. You cannot ask for what you do not know exists.
There are other ways to achieve "social networking" besides using only Zuckerberg's website and submitting to his warped ideas about human civilisation.
Collect the email addresses and contact info of all your Facebook friends now. You will need them in time when you will have your own "social network". A return to decentralisation is coming. It is inevitable. Everything goes in cycles. What's going to get us ethere is that centralisation has been abused to an unacceptable extent, by a sociopathic kid who is still maturing. Unfortunately he's maturing a little too slowly. I'm not sure users will have the patience to wait. They want an alternative.
FB's only value is your personal data.
They will likely end up having to give it back to you.
The web is going to get better. This is exciting.
Today not having a Facebook account is kind of like not having TV was (and in some cases, still is) in the past. We state it proudly and often because there are few enough of us that we feel the need to justify ourselves. (I'm firmly in both camps.) The fact is this article doesn't really seem to add anything new, and trots out the same arguments as dozens of other articles I've seen in the last few months.
That's not to say it's wrong, just kind of redundant.
Almost everyone on the internet is on Facebook. All my friends are on Facebook and I'm 30. Imho, facebook has the ability to become the next major communication medium after email, cell phones, phones, telegram.
I'm wondering: Who else doesn't use facebook?
I have an account, sure, back from '05 when I started college. I log in so infrequently that I often get emails from facebook along the lines of "you haven't logged in in 3 months. We think you should come back because...".
I never got into that whole thing about walls and public conversations and public comments. I'm far too self-conscious (and I judge far too harshly). The whole thing just drives me nuts. Some of my best friends and I are not even facebook friends.