From the "Now that everyone knows, we're going to step up and state the obvious" desk, your U.S. Department of Homeland Security wants you to know that using social networks like Facebook and Twitter is a high-risk activity. (Ironically, the page announcing this horrific threat includes a link to post it on... wait for it... Facebook and Twitter!)
I use Facebook... to the point of distraction sometimes. I've
reconnected with a lot of people through the site, and I have a lot of
fun with it. That said, it is a little disturbing when Facebook
management takes a rather cavalier attitude about privacy issues. In
short, I think it can be said about their views on protecting user
privacy: "We care, but not very much."
Recently uncovered IM commentary
from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg seems to suggest he never really
did care about privacy issues, given that he mocked people for giving
over information to his little project at Harvard. While he may have been just being a wiseguy, that attitude seems pervasive at Facebook.
From the casual observer's view, it seems quite apparent that
Facebook likes to play hide the ball with updated "privacy" policies
and associated tools and applications. Even people who follow stuff
like this for a living are not always able to keep up. I recently
wrote a paper about social media use among journalists, and found
myself in the awkward position of having to inform a reporter who
covers media issues for one of the national networks that his Facebook
page was currently as accessible to the public as a bus station.
Facebook can be a pretty powerful organizing tool. Ask Betty White. That's how the venerable 88-year-old actress ended up hosting Saturday Night Live last week. But not all is wonderful for Facebook in terms of grass roots campaigns, including this one...
As controversy swells around Facebook's latest changes to its privacy policy--which is now longer than the Constitution and offers some 50 settings and over 170 options--users' interest in deleting their Facebook accounts has soared.
A group of dissatisfied Facebook users have teamed up in an effort
to organize a mass, coordinated exodus from Facebook--and they're using
social networks to do it.
Their site, QuitFacebookDay.com, asks users to "commit to quit" Facebook on May 31 by signing their name or Twitter handle to the list of pledges.
Naturally, the folks at QuitFacebookDay.com have included in their campaign their very own Facebook page. (You can't make this shit up.)
I'm not close to bailing from Facebook. After all, I study it as part of my research at the University of Wisconsin as I slog toward a PhD. But I have decided to at least try to tighten things up with my security settings. It took me about 20 minutes to work through the dozens of menus and pages that one needs to visit to address the myriad of privacy options.
This all brings new meaning to the old phrase: My life's an open book. More than you know, to be sure.
[Cartoon by Jimmy Margulies. He's the editorial cartoonist for The Record, in
the northern New Jersey suburbs of New York City. He is the past winner
of both the National Headliner Award and The Fischetti Editorial
Cartoon Competition.]
