Privacy: The biggest, most fundamental issue of our time

Privacy, or the need for it, has come to light to me lately. My brother gave me some very good advice a few weeks ago:

"Don't worry about what you can't control"

This is very true, of course and very good advice.

Not long ago I posted a blog focusing mainly on Facebook: Social Networking or Spy Networking?

One of the main things Facebook does unbeknown to you if you are a computer novice is it will send out information to your friends - things like what you post to other people in the public domains (or their, "walls").

Targeted advertising is another one - if you are a university student you will get adverts offering student discounts and the like. Its a scary thought what information you can give out on the internet.

Targeted advertising is something that we cannot control at our own will. But I would not be surprise if one day this issue comes up in the media one way or another.

So back to the first point: Don't worry about what you can't control. We have the rights to report photos if we do not give our prior consent to publication, or report people posting or discussing our lives as a form of gossip that may be damaging to our reputation.

Facebook does indeed provide this facility, and people can be excluded from even the most minute of details - whether you are single, in a relationship, whether when you break up with your girlfriend it becomes public knowledge or not. It is not at all uncommon for people, even if it is friends out of curiosity, to "comment" on an issue, but then everybody else on the host;'s friend list can see this. With Facebook privacy settings you can do this. You can limit your friends to being able to do nothing but message you if you so wish.

It is, I believe, within our rights to know whats going on in our surroundings and to know what people may know about us which we might wish to withhold from them for whatever reason (be it job, personal privacy, dislike of nosiness, etc).

It is therefore, reasonable to expect to know what we might encounter at any given time. Living in a somewhat public residence (private bedrooms/communal ground floor), it has becoming increasingly familiar to me and important to me to understand and know that people could be in close proximity at any given time and I may not expect this to be the case if I were living in a private home elsewhere where I could expect privacy.

When in the public domain - whether Facebook or in the real world - we deserve to know what to expect and be respected with a certain level of privacy. Facebook, though it provides the possibility for this, is not so outgoing with its privacy policies and I think that they could do more to educate current and new users on privacy control. In the real world, reality, it is unfortunately, sadly a different matter. The most scariest of things is that even living in the most public of places, people are in such close quarters that they could, unwittingly, unknowingly, or God forbid intentionally invade privacy or violate their privileges of use of such a communal area.

Anybody could be walking around. Anybody could turn their back. It's not paranoia. We live in the 21st century and the information age, people just don't leave their doors unlocked anymore out of a sense of naievety. It is about protection, being safe. Knowledge is power.

I'm just glad I have a lock on my door.

Social Networking or Spy Networking?

I am becoming increasingly convinced, that Social Networking like Facebook, Myspace etc. (these two being my main mediums of outlet) are nothing more than Spy Networks. ... or Spy Networking, I would like to call it. Just a while ago, I blogged on giving myself the "challenge", just to stay away. Needless to say, it wasn't a brilliant success, or indeed one at all. But it resulted in deletion of people that I'm sure will just be, temporary for the time being.

The main reasons, I think why social networking tools like these on our beloved interweb are really spy tools are two things - the Twitter-inspired Status Update revolution and the "Who You May Know" Tool.

Over the course of the year, it was reported that Facebook has overtaken MySpace, globally as the main media for social networking, so this is where, I think the first reason, the "Status Update", comes into play more dramatically. It comes mainly from Twitter, which now you can sync the two using various web applications within Facebook. Log into Facebook, and you will see what I mean:

John Doe is eating his breakfast (two minutes ago)
Oprah Winfrey is having a bath with the dogs (1 hour ago)
Ms Blobby misses him even though he hates me (2 hours ago)
Anita Ball is getting pissed with Montel tonight (4 hours ago)

These are just randomly made up examples but they are not far off the mark. Some people post many of these a day, where it becomes like a diary, and you can have mini-conversations by "commenting" on a status update as if it were breaking news. One particular example I observed was a girl celebrating her 10 week anniversary with her boyfriend, with no less than 36 replies to the story where they had what I cannot describe other than a "<3 fight". You can see where it gets extreme.

I probably haven't been immune to this kind of criticism either - I like to bitch and moan, as much as the next person. And I've been the culprit of PM's on MSN Messenger from people asking me if I am "okay" because my statuses don't seem too happy. So there's a more personal, objective peice for me to give to this argument. And if you have facebook, log in now and you will see exactly what I mean. You will have a page of "news stories" and "items" all from people you have added to your facebook, because you either went to Primary School with them, met them at a Star Trek convention once, or tangeled your tackles together on one fateful night on the town. Put simply, anything you say, if you added someone who knows you, they will know too what you are doing with your life if you care to tell Facebook. Tell Facebook, tell the world.

I must prefer to entertain myself grading beers, noting humourous stories I find on the interweb, or writing long, rant-like articles such as this one on LucasWeatherby.com.

Still though, I find I update my facebook status, probably once or twice too many times when I'm awake. I mean, who cares if someone's getting drunk every day on the town or who you spend your time with? Sometimes though, these things can get personal, simply annoying, a headache. I've rarely ever seen things I find entertaining on facebook status updates.

Somehow, this brings us to my next point. I'm not quite sure how, but I want to move on.

MySpace and Facebook has over the past few months, recently rolled out a feature called "People You May Know", basically its friends of friends, a listing of people that if you have a few friends in common, you can find them this way. It's ingenious, isn't it?

But then if you know just one or two people, you can be seen by other people lurking in the background. Personally I add 99% of people to my facebook that I know or met because I'm not too bothered what they know about me or not. I only ever seem bothered when I know a little too much about them. You can always block, delete people and ignore their "friend request", but doesn't the "People You May Know" tool imply it being more of a spying tool than a social networking? I mean, you "may know" them, not actually be friends with them. That strikes me as a little bit strange, and still does really when you can see that people have contacts for "friends" when you know clearly you never really liked them in school or cared about them.

For some, I guess, it poses for a bit of humour (it does for me) - at least, where appropiate.
Sometimes when there is the need, you've always got your block and delete options, you might want to be friends again one day.
But Facebook as a social networking tool? Pfft.

Spy Networking, more like.