Some off topic notes about Facebook
@greenbes : You're not Facebook's customer. You're the product they sell to their real customers - advertisers. Forget this at your peril.So wrote Steve Greenberg on Twitter yesterday, and I have to say it's one of the better Tweets I've ever read.
It landed in the fertile field of my attention because moments earlier, I had been shaking my head over the idiocy of yet another petition on Facebook someone had sent me. This time, the petition was "No, I will not start to pay for Facebook!"
Facebook has no intentions to charge its users a dime for the very reason @greenbes pointed out. Facebook's users are their product, and as of the last count, there are 400 million of them worldwide.
Facebook got its start in 2003 when a sophomore at Havard named Mark Zuckerburg started a web site he called Facesmash. Facesmash was an underground thing, and Zuckerburg got into all kinds of trouble for hacking into Harvard's computer system to get the photos and names of his fellow students. Facesmash was shut down by Harvard's administration and they charged him with invasion of privacy among other things. Harvard being Harvard, the charges were dropped eventually.
The following semester, Zuckerburg launched a somewhat more reputable site called The Facebook. I say somewhat more respectable because within weeks he was facing another lawsuit from angry Harvardians who accused him of hacking into their e-mail accounts. The Facebook is what became just Facebook in 2004. The rest is history.
All of that records is conveniently available everywhere at the net. Clearly, this isn't always Sergey Brin and Larry Page we are talking approximately.
A lot of people get all poetic when they talk about Facebook, if I hear it called a global village one more time I'm going to scream. It's not a town square, it doesn't exist to allow you to play Farmville, it's not there so that you can reconnect with people you knew 20 years ago. Sure, it does all of those things, but they are not why Facebook exists. Facebook exists to make money. That's by no means a bad thing, but it is something to keep in mind when you're adjusting your privacy settings.
Put honestly, as Facebook's product you are performing responsibilities. First, the ads on the proper facet of your Facebook web page are there that allows you to click on. Facebook makes cash whilst you do. The 2d mission you are acting is filling out your profile and leaving it inside the open for the arena to look. Facebook uses the information it gathers from your profile and your hobby to draw a profile of you. It can then region greater ads in the front of you that you're much more likely to click. It can also sell its carefully drawn demographic data to all of us who is inclined to pay for it.
The global village is a Potemkin Village after all. ( Look it up. )
I see the petitions and moot protests about paying for Facebook and I can't assist however assume that the folks at Facebook are guffawing approximately the crimson herrings people grasp. Facebook will never price a user charge, however as their trendy grasp at your non-public facts suggests, that is the final issue within the international to be involved about on the subject of Facebook.
Through all of it, I find Facebook to be useful and helpful. I hold track of my multitudes of nieces and nephews via it. I preserve in contact with vintage buddies, fellow bloggers, fellow Twitterers, readers and friends. I syndicate my blog via it and way to Facebook, I by no means must keep in mind when peoples' birthdays are.
But I take as many measures as I can to keep the profile information I don't want to fall into the wrong hands out of the wrong hands.
My pals at the ACLU put together a quiz that shows you how much of your information goes public every time you take a quiz or use a Facebook app. Take their quiz and I guarantee you you'll never take another quiz.
I dug through the labyrinth of Facebook's new privacy settings a few weeks ago. Just the other day, the great and powerful Nancie Mills-Pipgras had a link on her page to something called Reclaim Privacy. Go to this website and follow their instructions. Reclaim Privacy will audit your Facebook settings and let you know what you're leaving out in the open.
So move use Facebook, and have amusing whilst your there. Just consider what you are handling.