Saturday, May 15, 2010

Facing Facebook

I'm beginning to think Mark Zuckerberg thrives off of bad publicity.

Another year, another privacy-related imbroglio surrounding Zuckerberg's brainchild, Facebook.com (I'd throw in a hyperlink here, but what's the point?). This came to my attention a few weeks ago when word was first getting out Facebook was sharing information on your profile page with third party Web sites. I did some digging on the subject after Facebook forced me to adopt linked pages to everything on my profile, from my hometown and high school to my list of favorite movies.

Zuckerberg will have to pry that information out my cold dead hands. I don't want him sharing the fact that I actually really enjoyed Reign of Fire with anybody but my friends.

I'd explain the nuances of Facebook's changes, but a Google news search will bring up several thousand hits from reputable sources. Do your own research, people.

What has piqued my curiosity is the outrage and surprise. Users are deleting their accounts, people are protesting, the media has thrown their spotlight on the social networking site's privacy settings for the umpteenth time and even congress is looking into doing something about it.

I don't mean to gloss over the concerns of others regarding their privacy rights on the Internet and I certainly don't mean to oversimplify their arguments. I can understand why people are upset. I can't understand why they didn't see this coming.

By joining Facebook, you tacitly agree to give your personal information to someone else, namely Zuckerberg and his team of Web geniuses. Thems are the rules. If you don't want to share your name, gender, likes, dislikes, opinions on politics, music and anything else under the sun, you don't have to join.

It's very simple.

What's problematic is that our Internet-driven society has come to depend upon Facebook. Businesspeople use it to network, journalists to find sources, friends to reconnect... The list goes on and on. For many of us, Facebook is a resource we use on a daily basis.

But that doesn't change the fact that we've already agreed to freely hand over everything about us.

If Zuckerberg's recently released college IMs have any truth in them - and still reflect how he feels about privacy - he sees it the same way.

Look at it this way (Editors Note: I'm awful with analogies, so if this falls flat don't blame me): some time ago in Washington, D.C. the authorities built the Metro. I don't have a car, but I work in the city and live in the 'burbs. Thus I depend on the Metro to get to work. Now that I've become adjusted to using the Metro every day, should I demand that it be free? Would I be right to demand it be free?

To sum up, it's a two-way street. Facebook connects us to the rest of the world. It just comes with a price. In this information age, what we've given up is worth its weight in gold.

Oh and do I think Facebook and Zuckerberg are going to survive this? Absolutely.

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