When I first began to compose “social networking 2.0,” it had comments about how I thought some of its features really creeped me out. As I got close to finishing the piece, I edited out a story which I will include here because it has become apparent that the general populace agrees with me.
During the early days of facebook.com, it was great. Since the service was new, it didn’t have much of your history to display. It basically said
- name
- age
- hometown
- highschool you went to
- college/university you are attending
You could post one picture of yourself, and you could choose to include other tidbits like movies/books/music you like, sexual orientation, and relationship status. If you didn’t want to say this, you didn’t have to.
As your list of friends grew, it was exciting to see what they were listing as their interests as they entered adulthood. Seeing someone’s music preference change from Backstreet Boys to the Beach Boys is always a pleasant thing.
The problem I found was that the community wasn’t big enough. There is comfort in anonymity. Although I gripe that the Myspace search feature is verging on unusable, that is almost a strength. When you find someone, you really find them. You either (a) see them on another friend’s page, or (b) get really lucky and guess their “custom myspace url.”
So on facebook, you’ve basically got a concentrated list of everyone who ever went to school with you being able to track you down. Let’s face it, I don’t think there is a single soul out there that got along with EVERYONE in their highschool. I know I didn’t. The point at which I chose to leave facebook was when I updated my profile to say that I was dating someone. It was dorky, I know.. but kinda sweet right? So imagine my surprise when over the course of the next 5 hours I got about 8 emails asking me who she was, etc. How does word spread this quickly, I wondered. Turns out if you edit any portion of your profile, you are automatically bumped up to the top of everyone’s friends list. See someone new at the top, go click their profile. Figure out whats new. So I left for myspace.
Now this “news feed” takes whatever work was included in stalking out of the equation. Sure you have to be friends first, but you don’t have to leave the comfort of your page. When you log in, you get an itimized report of every piece of minutiae that happened recently. The inclusion of “personal notes” has spawned what many are calling a “gossip epidemic.”
The reason I chose not to include this information in my last post is that I’m of two minds about the situation.
This is the age of the internet. Its all about collecting information and distributing it efficiently and effortlessly. Take this site for example: I write stuff on it and people read it. Instead of printing out a circular or sending out mass emails, I can quietly post it. People connected to my “feed” can get quiet updates, and friends can get briefed when they have the time. This is very similar to the facebook situation. They are only faciliating the disperal of information YOU CHOSE TO PUT ON YOUR DAMN PROFILE! If you think its creepy that people know about it, don’t put it on the internet. Rule number 1, guys.
The other side is that I believe there should be some sort of reward for sleuthing. There is a sense of satisfaction with discovering some thing about someone by visiting a couple pages and putting things together. By making it “too easy” to data mine a person, users are exposed to an increased about of stalkers/spammers/background researches who’s “jobs” just got easier. Although this second point is less “eli loves the internet and everything that goes with it” than you are used to, this is the human being speaking. The person that likes a taste of privacy every once in a while. Friends that go through the effort of manually checking your profile should be rewarded with something extra.
I ended the last post with the possibility that I might be returning to facebook. It is true that I have all but abandoned myspace.com, the service straight out sucks. And while I may be visiting facebook to get an update on friends, I will certainly be cautious about what I chose to post there. Whatever modicum of privacy that existed with “personal” profiles has officially been erased. And it’s not coming back.
I don’t view the changes to FaceBook as a huge privacy violation. Everything that is in the feed is stuff you could already find out. They just put it all on one page. I don’t think anyone cares that I joined the “Preston and Steve Morning Show Fan Club” group on September 45th, 2020.
If you’re putting information on the Internet, it will leak out. Your mother will read it. Your future employer will read it. Your significant other will read it. It’s already been documented that employers and school officials frequent Facebook.
That being said, I’m not thrilled with the implementation of the feed. It’s so ugly and cluttered to the point where it is nearly unusable. There’s way too many “event types” being covered, most of which I’m sure most people don’t care about. You can’t avoid seeing this ugly cluttered tool because it’s on the first page after you which for me at least sets a bad taste in my mouth for the entire viewing experience. Because mini-feeds are included on everyone’s profile now, it also ruins the aethetics of the “core” areas of the webapp.
So, yes. As someone who can be viewed, I could care less. As someone who can view, I’m annoyed for usability reasons.
I think there is a slight differentiation between users like you and me that were always aware of this information, and other people who never considered the possibilities of data mining. I know a couple people who\’s first introduction to the internet was facebook.
I agree that it looks like crap. I don\’t really understand the \”outrage\” at the addition, because as you stated, they aren\’t showing anything that was put there by the user. I just think its going to take some getting used to. Going to hang out with a friend and realizing that they\’ve been briefed on the ups and downs of your night out because of the efficient distribution of \”notes,\” or that girl you were avoiding that now knows you just broke up with your girlfriend. Welcome to the future?
In the long run, it’s probably good for people. As the old saying goes, “Security through obscurity is no security at all.” The Boiling Frog story comes to mind.
People forget how visible they are on the internet. Better they realize now that their interviewers are interviewing for are “pre-screening” their MySpace the night before the interview. While the interviewee is still deciding what tie to wear, their application may already be filed in the “DON’T HIRE, HAS SKANKY MYSPACE PICTURES” pile.
That girl you’ve been avoiding is already curious about why you’ve been avoiding her, so she’s already been reading your Facebook and knows you broke up with your girlfriend. You and I already knew this. The unwashed masses are just starting to realize this. Yes, the future is here.
“Oh, the Internet is big. No one that matters will ever read this.” That’s an easy assumption to make. It’s an assumption that feels safe. It’s a dangerous assumption. While it is a public relations fiasco for the FaceBook people, it also brings forth some public awareness and brings up the heat for the slow boiling frog.