Scary Facebook
I am getting more and more scared of Facebook as I know more about its internal workings and privacy policies. I would not have signed up had I known in advance that my postings and activities on this interface can be tracked and reproduced in the future even after I deactivate the account or delete the posts. Isn’t it scary to know that some potential employers in unknowable future will track what I do now or did 10 years back when I was a teenager and decide not to offer job because of my activities on some online interface of whose internal mechanism I was unaware of?
I now congratulate myself that I did not post anything stupid or crazy on the facebook, twitter, blog or other social networking sites. I could well have done that esp. on facebook under the illusion that my profile or account is accessible only to my trusted friends. But look at what Marshall Kirkpartick in “Facebook's Zuckerberg Says The Age of Privacy is Over,” Michael Zimmer in “ Zuckerberg’s Remarks Aren’t Surprising, Nor New, Nor True” and Phil Wong in “Conversations About the Internet #5: Anonymous Facebook Employee” say about facebook, its CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s statement on facebook’s changing stance on privacy and facebook’s increasing commercialization of personal data/information. They take issues with Zuckerberg’s statement that the age of privacy is over and that people have no problem sharing their personal information with the world. Kirpartick says that after facebook’s recent change in privacy policy, “Your name, profile picture, gender, current city, networks, Friends List, and all the pages you subscribe to are now publicly available information on Facebook. This means everyone on the web can see it; it is searchable.” This information comes to me as a shock not because I am afraid of people finding my personal information online but because it is dishonesty on part of the facebook to its millions of users. I know that anything put on the web is not private the instant it goes online. Anyone who wants can get my personal information even from my school page. It is searchable. My blog is being read and commented by unknown followers. I have no reservation on that because I post on them cautiously keeping in mind that anything posted there is available to all. But facebook’s case is different. It is claimed to be safest of all SNS with its privacy customizable. Many of its users are still unaware that their private information is accessible to everybody and that their activities can have effect in their careers.
I don’t agree with Zuckerman that the age of privacy is over. He must know that there still are private and public spheres, as well as private and public selves of man and these multiple selves are not always the same. These selves have their own spheres and sometimes can not be treated as same. So, facebook must clarify what kind of sphere it is and what self fits its sphere. Zuckerman and his team have to make everything including its privacy policy transparent to facebook users so that users can decide what is good or appropriate for them. I demand that facebook maintain consistency on its user policy and not deceive its users for making money overnight.
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3 comments:
So, not to sound too flippant, but after reading Gurak's piece, the Facebook privacy debates and the general themes of private and public we've been working with this semester, I guess my answer is "so what."
Like I said, that's a bit flippant, but the boundaries between the work self and the private self, and the public self are becoming progressively blurred. I mention this in my post about distributed capitalism and net work. I'm scared too. . . but at the same time I'm also a bit encouraged. In the example of a prospective employer in our line of work, I doubt that I would want to work in a location where folks aren't willing to look beyond my "work self" to see the other self that is me . . . in the ways it informs my work and in all its messy incarnations.
All that being said, in other industries where the work self and the other self are distinctly separated, I can see that this entire business as a real threat to future professional opportunities.
Not to get all metaphysical, but a strong sense of self helps me with a lot of these problems. If I am content with what I have, I will not want and my not wanting keeps me content. So if I'm not hired because I refuse to make clear distinctions between my professional self and my personal/political self, so be it. . .
I know it's easy for me to make that comment - especially when you consider my demographic: white, lower middle-class, male. Perhaps I haven't had to deal with those repercussions in a real material way as of yet; further, problems arise when I consider the idea of motivation - what drives me to continue going to school and pushes me to climb the academic hierarchy?
I don't know, what I do know is a healthy sense of self - despite all of the supposed "negative" consequences of my decisions, self-contentment allows me to not be so concerned with the distinctions between the personal and the public. . . and it allows me to love myself and others in a more meaningful way.
Now, I'll wait on the indictments on my all-to-idealistic response. :-)
Santosh and Justin,
I actually wonder what good can come out of this "public" living. I agree it's a bit scary but I also can't imagine anyone being very interested in a FB post I wrote 5 years ago. On the other hand when it comes to self I think it is important to remember it's best to be who we are without apology. However, I think that theory will be more trying for young users who haven't developed a very clear idea of who their work self and private self are. So I suppose in that case it becomes more precarious. Although...who is really interested in tracing ones life back by decades? What would be the benefit would they gain?
I just have to say that I love your first phrase...it could be the start of a really good short story/novel
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