Quick! Tell me if you’ve heard about this recently: 
- Apple put out a new version of the iPhone, and apparently people were a bit upset about a few things.
- Today (July 5th) was the day that Doc set on the Delorean to ‘25 years in the future’ (for the record, it isn’t).
- Steve Jobs wrote something about Flash to Adobe.
- A goal was scored in the World Cup.
- Someone’s giving away some shit.
- Twilight. Enough said.
- The guy from Zappos wrote an article about selling his company.
- …the list goes on…
Of course, I’m talking about twitter. It seems lately whenever something hits the ol’ Twit with a modicum of interest, the RTs begin in earnest. One or two trickle in , then the wave begins. 10 at a time. Then 10 or 20 more.
So I have to ask: Has twitter become the new email forward?
I sure as shit hope not. I like twitter. It’s amusing, I’m able to have conversations with people, and I even get some work out of it (quite a bit, actually). But between the recent outages, the reply spam, and now seeing the same article / link 30 times in a day, it’s beginning to wear thin. It’s noise. You aren’t contributing. For all the talk about community and connections, it’s one step above fucking spam. Yes, I’m all for sharing information. That’s the point. But is there any benefit to perpetuating this? Am I wrong here? By all means, correct me if that’s the case.
So it’s been about two weeks since I ditched Facebook. And surprise, my life hasn’t gone into the gutter, people are still able to get a hold of me, and things are pretty much the same as they were, albeit with a bit less noise. Since that point, a few more things have come out to further muddle the issue of what (if any) privacy exists on Facebook. To quickly outline:
- Their privacy policy is longer than the US Constitution.
- To manage your privacy on Facebook, you will need to navigate through 50 settings with more than 170 options.
- The NY Times had to do an infographic to explain the myriad of options (check it out here).
- Mark Zuckerberg has basically been accused of everything from being an amoral sociopath to not giving a shit (not that he really should).
But this isn’t about all that. I’ve said my peace on the topic, and I deleted my profile. So it’s done. HOWEVER, I’ve had a few interesting discussions with folks online as information has come out. And that’s what has troubled me. Not what Facebook is doing, rather, what people’s reactions have been. More so, people’s response to my desire to have some privacy online. Or, more importantly, the desire to control what information is made public by any of the web services I use. Some of the comments I was given were:
- No one cares what I am doing
- If you want privacy, you must have something to hide
- People will make judgments about me regardless of what info is available
- If you don’t want it public, don’t put it online (no shit)
- It’s a voluntary service (again, no shit)
- Privacy is a myth
Think of it this way: your bank has a ‘social graph’ about you that makes the one Facebook has put together look like a bathroom wall scribbling. Think about all the places you use a debit card in a given day. Your bank has records of where you shop, what you eat, how much you drive, and when you do all these things. They have years worth of data, could pinpoint things such as when you begin dating, the birth of a child, or just about anything money related (which is, to say, just about everything you do). Now, imagine if they decided to write an API to allow companies to use this information to market products and services to you. Pretty creepy, eh? Well, don’t worry about it, because they won’t. In fact, they can’t. It’s illegal.
Now I’m not saying that banking is the same as using a social network online. They aren’t. But the fact remains that my desire to have some part of my life private is not anyone’s business but my own. And this coming from someone who is pretty open online. I tweet a lot, put photos up on Picasa and twitpic, maintain a blog, and even have my phone number on my portfolio site. So I’m clearly not ‘off the grid’. But there are a few things in my life that I don’t share. The reasons for which frankly aren’t any of your business.
Over the weekend, I did what some would consider social media suicide. I deleted Facebook. You know, the place where EVERYONE is and EVERYONE needs to be. That one. Gone. Deleted. Goodbye. And not simply deactivating, but actually deleting the damn thing. It took a while to actually find how to do it, since they don’t make it obvious. So why did I commit seppuku to my online life?
It stopped serving a purpose. One could argue it never did.
Now a bit of background: I didn’t go to a college that had email for a while. It was a junior college, so they didn’t roll out email as soon as others. So inherently, I never had access to Facebook during the run-up with the college crowd. Also, I didn’t really attend college on a regular basis. Once on my way to class I stopped off to have a beer, and didn’t go back for 3 years. So there’s that. I was on the MySpace bandwagon pretty early on, and I held on to that for longer than most. But that’s gone, too.
A friend Ruth summarized her feelings on it pretty well, and coming from a different perspective. And that’s cool, it serves a purpose for her. But it doesn’t for me.
And then there is the privacy stuff.
Now I’m not some tinfoil hat person who thinks everyone is out to get me. Nor do I think that I have any real privacy online. Yes, it’s an illusion. But at what point is it just ridiculous? I understand that when I sign up for a website service, I’m giving them something of mine. Usually my data and some personal information. And I also know that’s probably gonna be used to market something to me. Again, I get it. Although some folks may not agree, the internet doesn’t run on rainbows and hugs. But when Facebook up and decides to give away my personal information to anyone who asks? That’s just a bit too much for me. It’s one thing for me to give away my information. It’s another for someone like Facebook to whore it out like a lonely girl with daddy issues.
Will I fall off the digital map? Doubtful. I use twitter, I have email, and even a *gasp* phone number. Crazy, eh? So I’ll see you around the ‘tubes. Don’t mess up the place while I’m gone.
I am a freelance web monkey in Tampa, FL. I am heavily tattoo'd, I sleep too little, I drink too much coffee, smoke entirely too many cigarettes, but otherwise do my thing. My littleman > you.
