I choose this as my first link to share on my shiny new blog with the world for a number of reasons, none the least of which being that the growing ubiquity of facebook scares the shit out of me. That said, this also anchors a timeframe to the beginning of my blog (the 2010 f8, where the facebook 'Open Graph'/ Manifest Destiny was announced). And it gives me an opportunity to rant about privacy in twenty-ten.
I understand that there are several data aggregators that scope out my every click on in the webosphere, though I did disable google.com/history from tracking me. facebook is a profitable company that makes revenue by allowing third-party apps to use your information to direct products and services to you. I get that. It's a marketing and demogrpahics gold mine of information. That's fine. What I don't like is that I have no control over that information and how it is distributed. Wait, no. That's not exactly it, because I will not kid myself into thinking there are not dozens if not hundreds of other creepy-crawlies hiding in my netterwebs that will do exactly the same thing and I will never know about it (it's sort of like when you stop to think about the bacteria that are living on your skin - you know they're there and they are not hurting you, but the last thing you want to do is imagine how they are living off your dead tissue, defecating on you, and generally slithering around between skin particles... shudder). My issue with the facebook is that it brazenly tells me that I have zero expectation to privacy anymore. That may be true, but you can at least have the decency to LIE to me about it. If you're going to stick it in my backside without my permission, at least use a little lube, yeah?
I am growing increasingly skeptical of facebook's chokehold over my private data, but sadly I am one in the generation that pioneered facebook - my account was established in the Fall of 2005 when only a few universities had access to the site. Consequently, my IRL social network is very much wrapped up in Mark Zuckerberg's monstrosity of an online social network. Sad but true. Sad, but all too gd true, my friends.
No comments:
Post a Comment