The Implications of a Facebook Society

FloatsomNJetsom writes "The site Switched.com is taking a look at the slow death of privacy at the hands of social media sites such as Facebook and MySpace with a link to a report on the creepy practice of Facebook employees monitoring what pages you look at and a thought-provoking video interview with social media expert Clay Shirky — who says that social networks are profoundly changing our ability to keep our private lives private. 'Eventually, Shirky theorizes, society will have to create a space that's implicitly private even though it's technically public, not unlike a personal conversation held on a public street. Otherwise, our ability to keep our lives private will be forever destroyed. Of course, that might already be the case.'"

Private Lives Private

I don't think that sites like Facebook are "profoundly changing our ability to keep our private lives private." Rather, they're changing our ability to make our public lives more public. This is an important distinction, since these social sites make it quite clear by design that you are sharing your information with your friends and acquaintances. If people really wanted to keep the fact that they got smashed and rode horseback on their friend private, they'd just open up notepad and type away. Instead, they decide to broadcast that on a social website so their friends can see their drunken antics. Don't take this to mean that I condone the practice of Facebook employees (or gov't agents for the tin-foil hat crowd) browsing private profiles. There is an implication of semi-privacy if I set my profile to be viewable by friends only. If a potential employer sees Johnny McDrunkeverynight's public pictures and decides not to hire Johnny, fine. Maybe he shouldn't have used the megaphone (social websites) to broadcast his machismo.

Re:Private Lives Private

[..]the general principle (that pretty much what we use it for is to hide stuff we shouldn't be doing) was about right.

I completely disagree with this premise. Privacy, personal space, and the non-invasion of unwanted and unknown others into my life are extremely precious to me and extremely difficult to find in today's overcrowded world.

By saying that I only use my privacy to hide illegal or 'immoral' activity is total crap. Is taking a shit while reading a book wrong? No. Do I want people to be able to watch me? Hell no. Same goes for having a private conversation with my girlfriend about her bad day at work, sitting in a comfy chair and disappearing into some great music on my headphones, or even jerking off to porn if it suits my fancy. No one else should be privy to that.

Is a more 'open' society what we really want? I don't believe so. The less I know about the randoms out there the better, as most of them would probably just piss me off or make me sick to my stomach. If some idiot wants to put everything they ever do online and others want to watch their every move, label them as the exhibitionist/voyeurs that they are and be done with it. Don't use it as a rallying cry to try and make society more 'open' as if this would suddenly cause world-peace.

---
When I destroy the Internet, I am going to start with LiveJournal.

Re:Private Lives Private

"we are waiting for a new world, made from people who know what to make public and what not to, because they are fully aware of consequences. the problems like those stated in the article are in my opinion merely transitional. once the new reality sets in, there will be unwritten laws on what to do / what to say / how to behave online, not unlike those we abide by in public IRL. until then, people will suffer for them not being careful and bitch about it. oh well."

I dunno...the younger age group there, really does not understand or comprehend how their actions being published on the net can have LONG term consequences. It wasn't that long ago I was in that mode of mind, and when you are in the bulletproof years, you needn't worry about anything.

I think that publishing so called 'bad' behavior (hey, not saying it isn't fun), and all is a bit more glorified these days when you see the likes of Paris and Brittney...getting tons of attention and press for bad behavior. The trouble is, a kid that wants to emulate them, be famous for being famous, doesn't quite see that Paris and Brittney pretty much have unlimited funds available to them. They are wealthy, and do not have to worry about employment, or clearances later in life for good paying jobs.

In the past as a kid, if you got drunk and did something stupid (again, I didn't say it wasn't fun to pull shit like this)...you hoped it wasn't documented more than some pictures you could get the negatives too. YOu could outgrow these episodes, and heck, at the worst...MOVE away from them to another city.

But, what gets on the internet stays on the internet...potentially forever. For anyone to see.

That's just a little scary. A childhood bit of fun, that can harm you for the rest of your life. But, as a kid, you don't think that far ahead.

I think in the next 10 years when we really start seeing the results of this type of thing, we will see a lot of lives that can reach less that what they potentially could have, or more acceptance of a person's past behavior that was a bit childish.

If you think the latter, then ask yourself by today's politicians aren't more frank and public about their past 'drug' indescresions...since we are now starting to get well into the age ranks of people where very few are out there that never even tried any before ever. Nope...still taboo if you want to be in public office.

Re:Private Lives Private

I think it's important for users (and developers) of such sites to keep in mind that most people want only a limited degree of visibility. Like you said, people do want to share those drunken escapades with their friends, but not necessarily with strangers, or worse, employers, or worse, mom and dad.

So it's perhaps prudent to give control over the visibility of content, but at the same time, I think people need to realize that a person's MyFace page is not necessarily descriptive of them in every environment or context. Most people behave differently at work than they do with close friends. And being a lawfully drunk weirdo on your own time doesn't really bear much on your professional life unless you show up hungover. Which could happen either way.

My point: people should not take these sites too seriously.

Re:Private Lives Private

So it' like a girl who wants to have pornographic pictures taken of her for money, yet is all pissed off when her father buys that very magazine two months later.
My opinion. You want privacy, You want Only certain people to know certain things. you don't publish them on a website, you don't run around a bar with whomever doing stupid things.

In general the information on FAcebook/myspace/ etc is ultimately harmless, As those people will tell their co-workers eaactly what thy did anyways

Re:Private Lives Private

I think it's important for users (and developers) of such sites to keep in mind that most people want only a limited degree of visibility. Like you said, people do want to share those drunken escapades with their friends, but not necessarily with strangers, or worse, employers, or worse, mom and dad.

If we can't keep PRIVATE data private (think of all the data leaks - credit card, SSNs, etc), what makes you think we can keep PUBLIC data "somewhat private"?

Perhaps the operating motto should be "data leaks happen". If you want limited visibility to some event, spread the news in a limited fashion. Otherwise checking the box that reads "friends only" puts the trust into whatever's ensuring that. But some gizmo, gadget, geegaw, what-have-you that someone wrote might (accidentally, ignorantly, purposely) ignore that flag, and boom, it becomes public.

It isn't new. It isn't confined to these "social networking" sites. After all, if you do something stupid in public, you're counting on everyone around you keeping it quiet so it doesn't show up on YouTube in 5 minutes. Now you're counting on one of your friends also not passing on this to someone else? Sure that "someone else" may not be able to view the source material, at which point it becomes another telephone game. Or someone just saves the picture and emails it to everyone, and soon your boss has it in his inbox.

To control information dissemination, it requires control on all levels. Don't want the general public to see it? Don't post it. "Friends only" is still public, just you've applied a little bit of DRM on it.

Ah, maybe that's the solution. You'll have to DRM-protect all this "Friends only" stuff to keep it only between your friends and not your friend's friends (and so on). After all, DRM works great on music and movies...

Re:Private Lives Private

There is a great book about this called "The Unwanted Gaze" by Harvard Professor Jeffrey Rosen. He gives many examples about how incomplete context can negatively shape otherwise innocuous information.

The easy, kneejerk answer is DON'T POST IT ON THE INTERNET IF YOU DON'T WANT IT TO BE SEEN! But that is too simplistic an answer to a complex social problem.

American privacy law revolves around the idea, proposed by Brandeis and articulated by the Court in Katz, that it is the "expectation of privacy" that users have that determines how much privacy they are accorded.

When I post to an open thread on Slashdot, I have no expectation of privacy, other than obscurity, and that's not defensible. No one seriously argues that open fora have a high expectation of privacy (although you can make a contextual argument; if I'm "obviously" trolling Slashdot, or making an ironic post, the community may understand my post to mean one thing while an outside observer takes it another way. Look at the 4chan bomb scare or the GNAA. But that's not about privacy, that's about incomplete information.)

But let's say I have a Facebook with my privacy settings turned all the way up. Colleague A is my Facebook friend because they know me well and I decide to give them access to my information. Now, if I have all these privacy settings turned on, and I trust Colleague A, don't I have some expectation of privacy on my "public" Facebook?

I'd say yes. But what happens when Boss B threatens Colleague A to let him read my Facebook? I didn't extend access rights to him. In fact, I took affirmative steps to deny such access. Doesn't that go against my expectation of privacy?

It's an extreme example, but the kneejerkers who just say LOL YOU POSTED ON THE INTERNET IDIOT are ignoring the larger social and legal framework that these networks operate under.

Re:Private Lives Private

we need to do a better job of educating users

Who's this 'we' who needs to do a better job of educating users? If you're saying that Computer Studies in school should concentrate far more on issues like this then I agree but the vast majority of users have left school and how exactly are 'we' or whomever, going to educate them.

It's exactly the same with malware protection, far too many users don't understand the risks in opening e-mail attachments or downloading 'free' wallpaper but there's no way to teach them, nor, in a non-totalitarian society, should there be. It's the price you pay for freedom - the freedom of illeducated users to operate computers.

Re:Private Lives Private

I think one of the big issues with the development of the social networking sites is that it's not always the person's decision to be featured on facebook - I don't have an account on facebook/myspace/etc, and yet I know there are numerous photos of me, labelled as such, on those sites, because I associate with people who do use them. It's not a big deal at the moment (the photos are only linked in the most tenous of ways, and none of them are particularly dodgy), but there is a potential there - even if someone isn't actually actively participating in such sites, there is likely to be information on them there.

There is the potential that, as social networking sites evolve, it may be possible to extract a non-trivial amount of information on a person simply from their associations with others, even if they choose not to add any additional facts to the mix.

I do agree that, at the moment, the majority of the people on these sites are being bitten in the ass by their own stupidity, but I don't think this necessarily holds in the future.

Re:Private Lives Private

Then you need to speak with the people you associate with about your expectations of privacy. It's not facebook's fault your friends are violating your privacy.

Misunderstanding Facebook

I think one of the big issues with the development of the social networking sites is that it's not always the person's decision to be featured on facebook - I don't have an account on facebook/myspace/etc, and yet I know there are numerous photos of me, labelled as such, on those sites, because I associate with people who do use them. It's not a big deal at the moment (the photos are only linked in the most tenous of ways, and none of them are particularly dodgy), but there is a potential there - even if someone isn't actually actively participating in such sites, there is likely to be information on them there.

You're not on Facebook -- this is why you don't understand how it works, but you have recourse here. You can join Facebook, maintain a very small friends list, and set your profile to be unreadable by anybody else. Then you can change your privacy settings so that photos tagged of you are only visible to those on your friends list. This affects even photos tagged of you taken by other people. That way even if one of your friends decides to make their profile public, any photos they tag of you submit to YOUR privacy settings, not theirs. And since they can always see their own photos, they probably will not even notice that you have restricted their material to YOUR friends list. You don't even have to log in to maintain this privacy barrier -- any future photos that are tagged with your name submit to the same privacy settings. You can even go in and tag the photos with your own name yourself so that they WILL submit to your privacy settings. Facebook is not like Myspace -- it's very much better thought through, and much more private by default. In fact I find them to be completely opposite in their core approaches. People who say Facebook/Myspace in one breath generally don't get it.

Idiots, not Facebook, spell the end of privacy.

If you stand on the corner and scream out your inner most thoughts, don't be suprised if anyone within a few blocks knows (and crosses to the other side of the street when they see you coming). Don't want something known widely? Don't post it on a public web site.

Solution: don't join facebook?

It's not like anyone is forcing you to join it or other social networking sites. If you must join it, just have a cursory account and don't update it, ever. Just use it to read your friend's news or whatnot.

You can only lose privacy in this sort of thing if you give the info out to begin with. If you don't do that, you're pretty safe.

I'd comment on this...

But I have a feeling someone is watching!

*gasp*

Egregious nonsense

Eventually, Shirky theorizes, society will have to create a space that's implicitly private even though it's technically public, not unlike a personal conversation held on a public street. Otherwise, our ability to keep our lives private will be forever destroyed. ...Or you could just refrain from posting the details of your private life to the Internet.

Re:Egregious nonsense

Saying that you can simply refrain from posting the details of your private life to the Internet misses part of the point here. To communicate with many of my friends, who insist on using social networking sites as their main avenues for staying in touch with friends, I am forced to use a privately-owned network where many of my rights may be waived. You could say, of course, that I should not stay in contact with those friends, but in real life it is not so easy to make such demands, especially when we are talking about communicating with relatives and dear friends, often in cases where communication is essential, such as family emergencies. Pragmatically, it just isn't always feasible to say "use the public internet and the (broken) standards for email."

The phenomena is similar to the shrinking amount of public space in the United States: A popular tourist destination in the city where I live used to be public property, and anyone could come with a sign and a cause and exercise their right to free speech -- including criticizing the government that maintained the large, open-air space. Within the past decade, the city sold the land and put the space under private management, and now one cannot go and peacefully exercise their right to free speech -- the private owner has far greater effective and legal discretion over what happens on their land. Most of us must move quite a bit through the space around them -- roads, offices, parks, hospitals, stores, and even virtual spaces -- and the ownership (common, corporate, or individual) has an effect on what we do and say, and what others can do and say to us.

Future Society

I think they're referring to the Facebook Wars of 2013, after which the nominal Facebook World Government will require all citizens to publish their most intimate details online for public scrutiny.

Christ! More fucking Facebook editorial bukkake

Dear Journalists: Want to pre-write your next, oh, 50 articles? Dig up all your Friendster posts from the 90's, find-replace, and you're done.

Seriously, watching people OMGZOMGFACEBOOK!!!111one is just as painful as it was back then.

This would only hold true...

... if you were forced to get a Facebook account.

Other than what bands I like and what shows I might be going to at local pubs, Facebook knows nothing about me. But the price of putting yourself, and your thoughts, out onto the Internet has always been that anyone can know what you post.

But that's just it, isn't it: what you make public becomes public. That's not shocking news, unless you think that your boss might not notice your "My boss is a dingbat!" Facebook group/blog.

If you're happy (or, in some cases, stupid enough) to be posting (semi-)private details of your life on the web for people to see, especially on sites that you really don't control (like a blog not on your own server or on Facebook/Myspace/etc.), then be prepared to face the consequences; we've already heard lots of stories about students/employees getting in shit for what they write on personal pages. We've been forewarned, and to keep acting shocked, appauled, or violated is absurd.

Your private life is your's, yes, but when you post its details in a public forum... well... shit might happen. Not a new idea.

Re:This would only hold true...

But that's just it, isn't it: what you make public becomes public.

Yes, and what other people post about you also become public. Bear that in mind.

Or you could just, you know

NOT POST YOUR SHIT ON FACEBOOK!

Seriously, I'll never understand these stories that seem to make it as though you have no choice but to divulge all sorts of personal details online. No, actually not the case. If you wish, you can simply not participate. I personally don't. You can search Myspace, Facebook, and so on, you'll never find anything about me. I don't have a page, don't want a page. I just don't participate in that part of the Internet.

However, even if you do, you can simply not be an idiot about it. It is perfectly possible to create a personal site and give away only the kind of details that you are ok with. There's plenty of information on all of us that is public anyhow, maybe you limit it to just that, or a subset of that. You can have a page and not tell everyone everything about your life. The only problem is if you post intimate details, but expect that only the people who you approve of will see it. That is just, well, stupid. Even if the site claims to have privacy features, don't count on it.

The test I say you should apply is a three factor one: Do you want your mom to know this? Do you want your boss (present and future) to know this? Do you want a creepy sex offender to know this? If the answer to any of those is "no" then DON'T POST IT! Why? Because all three of those people can use the Internet, so all three might come across your page. As such filter your information. Don't post anything you wouldn't want your family to find out, and certainly don't post anything you wouldn't want your work to find out about.

If people just apply a little common sense to it, it really works out ok. You don't have to participate, and if you elect to, if you are just smart bout it and don't do shit like post pictures of you and your friends getting high, you'll probably be just fine.

From the linked blog...

"Within the company, it's considered a job perk, and employees check this data for fun."

And,

"Well, Facebook's privacy policy doesn't explicitly reserve or waive employees' right to check out your profile for any reason. Of course, the practice still reeks of skunkery --"

The linked article goes on, with some anecdotal incidents that make for fun and disturbing reading.

Just about says it all. Use Facebook, pretty much forfeit any privacy. The Facebook employees seem to not only have the power, but consider it high camp to enjoy your data.

Harrr. My Facebook-lovin friends are gonna pretty much feel violated by this. What was that phrase? Oh yeah...

Revelling in the agony of others.

Nice.

Getting an error on the first page, I clicked through for the full video on the page (http://video.aol.com/video/news-switched-shirky/2011535) and got an error message: "We're sorry, but this video is not available in your area." I didn't realize that AOL had to ship the video to England in order for me to see it. I guess I just don't understand how the internet works.

-Grey [wellingtongrey.net]

Where's the NON-STORY tagging?

taking a look at the slow death of privacy at the hands of social media sites

Social Media sites have no influence over privacy. Marked lame.

Hmm

Eventually, Shirky theorizes, society will have to create a space that's implicitly private even though it's technically public, not unlike a personal conversation held on a public street. Otherwise, our ability to keep our lives private will be forever destroyed. Of course, that might already be the case.'"

You mean like /.?

Repeat after me:

Security through obscurity is not obscurity - tell anyone and you've told everyone.
Information wants to be free. Even when said information is a photo of you lying unconscious next to a keg.

Keeping the private private...

In terms of the internet: Why not just stay offline or off of sites like that? It's quite simple, no? And there still exist letters, email, and other methods of communication with past friends. The way I feel about it, if they are still friends today, they've kept communication lines open past highschool/college/etc.

Clay Shirky: Reactionary?

The impression I got from Clay Shirky here was, "OMG! The Internet!"

My personal believe is that every person should work and live as openly as practically possible. This is how Open Source has developed, and if we are to have a free society, this is how we should live. It's when you can't see people as people, that you are okay with treating them as trash.

Here's an idea

"social networks are profoundly changing our ability to keep our private lives private"

If you want to keep your private lives private, don't post it on the intraweb for all to see.

Novel... I know.

So what?

This argument (public vs. private) is only relevant if one uses these sites (Slashdot included, folks!). As Big Brother becomes more of a reality day by day, people are playing right into "his" hands. I don't get it, myself. While I post on Slashdot, opening up my views for all to see and criticize - I do not, and will not post pics of my ugly ass on FaceSpace or whatever the social site of the day is. I don't need to be that public, but I guess others do. Is it a social trend that everyone wants to be a star? Wow, my plans to rule the world would never come true is everyone knew about them, drawings included.

My tinfoil hat is painted Red, White, and Blue!

Missing a point?

Are some replies missing the point?

I'm not able to view the interview as I'm currently at work but the summary talks about a semi-public space. I think the implication is that people want the moon on a stick - a place they can easily share details about themselves without fear of comeback at a later date.

Then again, I wonder why selecting the option of only letting friends view your profile isn't sufficient, but perhaps I'm not down with the kids and their nonchalance to keeping some things private (using words like "nonchalance", I suspect I'm not down with the kids full stop).

RTFA

Most of the whiny trolls on this site are saying the article is stupid; that if you don't want your information to be public, don't post it. However, many of you either failed to comprehend or failed to read the article. Every click on the site is mined in the database, regardless of your "Privacy Settings". This data is accessible to Facebook employees (and most likely advertising firms and government agencies that pay for/demand it...). That is what the article is pointing out. Even still that should really come as no surprise.

Implications

The original article implies that we MUST all use Facebook if we're going to participate in the world around us today. Me, I'm not going to do it. Screw Facebook and Flickr and the rest of it. Peoples' home movies and slide shows of their vacations were boring in 1970 when they were projected on the wall and they're still boring when they're on Facebook and Flickr.

I guess I'm a luddite, but I prefer to socialize face-to-face with no recording devices. Not cameras, not audio recorders. Some things are best forgotten.

Employers Should Tread Cautiously

Opening themselves the information on Facebook and such opens them up to screwing up Equal Opportunity Employer status. Knowing folks religion and sexual orientation is something employers should avoid.

Stupid.

Several things - first, what the hell is a "social media expert"? Reminds me of the absurdly specific correspondent titles on the Daily Show.

Second, social networks are populated by voluntary disclosure, and participants have no expectation of privacy. You never know who might be reading it, so I don't put anything on there that I wouldn't feel comfortable putting on a postcard. This is basically implicit inasmuch as you are joining a social network, where the whole idea is to share information about yourself.

Third, I've found that the best way to defend myself against identity theft is to just be myself, which is to say, boring. Who would want to be me, when even I don't want to be me? Plus, the more time I spend on Facebook, the more I notice that people everywhere are adopting my strategy.

Fourth, at the end of the day, social networks are just another way to waste time on the internet. There's more to life than sitting in front of a computer. I promise!

Get over it

Or, as Scott McNealy said, "You have no privacy. Get over it." Funny how nobody liked the comment when he made it, yet he was completely right.

Yes, somebody out there is going to store every bit of data they can because it just MIGHT be useful. Data storage is extremely cheap: if a marketer can get one lead from 1GB of web server access logs, he's making a profit. The feds want to cross-index databases because some analyst thinks terrorists would obscure online activities by using one account to communicate with like-minded people and another account to do research for some attack - and if 500TB of data stops an attack, it's cheap. (The idiot analyst is grossly underestimating the difficulty of cross-indexing databases - hint, names are NOT good primary keys - and it's his manager's fault for approving the idea, but you can't stop idiots with poor management from doing stupid things.)

Worse, no amount of government laws will protect your "public" data. Oh, laws can keep the government from using it ... somewhat. (In the US, warrentless searches are inadmissible in court - but they aren't illegal, the police can use such evidence to decide to watch you more closely in hopes of getting real, admissible evidence). But laws are not going to keep private companies from using your data. Privacy policies are great, but (IANAL) probably flimsier than EULAs that everybody here on Slashdot derides. And there is always an immoral company willing to violate its own privacy policy for a business advantage. Example ineffective law: in the US, you aren't supposed to use SSNs for personal identification (except for the IRS). So everyone just starts using the last four digits of the SSN, which technically complies but, when combined with just a little more data, is just as invasive. (Hint: there are 300 million people in the US. 30,000 have the same four-digits as you, 600 are in the same state (in California), 5 are in the same city, and none use the same set of banks you do). The law will not protect your privacy. Sorry.

But what are the effects of this invasion of privacy? A private company could refuse service to you - most companies can already do that for any number of reasons, maybe they don't like your credit history or your choice in web browsers. The government could arrest you - they can already do that for any reason, it's the court that will order your release, and the court is unbiased enough to not care about anything except the charge. Maybe you'll find out your neighbor has a thing for horse porn and think less of him. Well, it's your own fault, if you don't want to know about horse porn fetishes, then don't go looking for them.

What's Off Limits? My Nipples.

For all of you who are yelling that social network sites unnecessarily require a choice to make things public, check out the Mo Rocca interview video [switched.com] linked to from the main article page. Insightful, to say the least. Hilarious, to say the not least.

Or as some old blues guy said:

Ya pays ya money ya makes ya choice. I have yet to hear a cogent argument for WHY divulging your life on Facebook is a necessity. You do seem to have a lot of power over what you do and do not divulge. Now in terms of tracking your movements elsewhere - yeah that's a given but the FB generation didn't discover that. I mean you could Google underage porn too - if you think no one is flagging that you are dull.

No issue for me

The site Switched.com is taking a look at the slow death of privacy at the hands of social media sites such as Facebook and MySpace ...... Otherwise, our ability to keep our lives private will be forever destroyed. Of course, that might already be the case.'

Or you can not use "social networking" sites, just like myself. Electronic and fast isn't alwaysa good. I'll keep my "social networking" face to face and personal, TYVM.

privacy

To be completely sure that your private messages remain private, you must:

1. Hand deliver cryptography keys to other party
2. Encrypt all sensitive messages prior to delivery
3. Trust other party to never share the encryption method

Today, with public keys, we can generally skip step 1. The other party can send you their public keys through unencrypted email, or on a public bulletin board, and using them will be fine, as long the mailservices between you didn't tamper with those public keys during transmission.

Everyone (even your mom) knows that steps 2 and 3 are non-negotiable.

So, why would anyone think that sending a private message through facebook would really be private? With encryption as cheap and easy as it today, I think that this is a non-concern. There's no guarantee that facebook won't sell your information to the highest bidder. The same goes if you use gmail or MSN hotmail for email. There is no practical reason that anyone should need to "trust" such companies to keep your information private. That responsibility is yours and yours alone.

filters

It seems to me that the employers who would judge someone on their facebook profile are probably the ones who are doing lines of coke off some 13 year old boy's backside while beating an endangered species to death with a pvc pipe. So what if johnny Q public got drunk and tagged the big girl at the party? So what if he smoked a little grass on his way home from work? The people who put the spin on these things to make them seem evil or bad employee material are simply filtering the things these people are doing in their private life through their own demented view of reality. Yes we should all be a little more private about our private life. but let's face it. the things I do after work are mostly harmless and mostly not worth considering private. If you want to delineate everything you do outside of your workplace as private then you probably don't have a facebook or myspace account. Those that fear being seen for their actions usually are not that into social networking.

Here's a thought

Don't use Facebook! If you like privacy, don't put your private life online! I think this is less about the "erosion" of privacy than it is about people simply caring less about sharing things that would have formerly kept to themselves. One of my buddies was telling me about how someone added him to their friend list (or whatever) the other day:

Friend: Remember that girl I hooked up with in New Zealand? She added me to her Facebook the other day.
Me: Hot.
Friend: Yeah I wouldn't have remembered who she was but in her message she wrote "Hey remember me we hooked up in New Zealand!"
Me: And the whole world can see that?
Friend: Sure!
Me: Weird.

That's about the whole issue, in a nutshell. You either find things like that completely disturbing... or you're fine with it. Some of us take comfort in anonymity, and apparently many other people like they idea of having this virtual following of people who know (any maybe even care) about where they are, what they're doing, and who they slept with, every second of every day. Call it "indulging your inner rock star," I don't know. I just look at it all and boggle.

public or private

Has anyone