the temperature at which (face)books burn
Note: This is a blog entry I began and abandoned back in June. While I realize the news is a little out-of-date, when I came back and went through the entry I’d outlined I realized I’d like to finish it and post it anyway. So there.
Selection from The New York Times
By: BLOOMBERG NEWS
Published: June 8, 2011
Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/09/technology/09facebook.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha26
Reflection:
My gut reaction to all the fuss as a generation… wait, what generation am I in again?… something-er, was that this is all a bunch of paranoia. I love the Facebook face recognition software – it makes so much sense! As the article says, Facebook-ers are constantly tagging photos of other people (functionality that they have today), so why not make it easier for us? In fact I got a lot of amusement in the fact that it mistook my cousin for my aunt – how cool is that? Facebook saw similarities I’d never noticed before! The face recognition feature is not being used for any other purpose other than to help us tag people we’re already friends with. So what, exactly, is the problem again?
However, once I calmed down from my pro-technology pro-social rant, I realized I’m actually glad there are privacy advocates out there fighting for all of us. Facebook is such a natural extension of my social life now that often I can completely overlook the risks involved. I may not agree with the particular fights they pick, but isn’t it nice to know someone out there is actively working to try and prevent big brother?
We all read Fahrenheit 451 in school, we’ve all read the warnings. And, I think it’s safe to say that the idea of big brother is pretty damned scary to all of us. I also think many of us don’t think Fahrenheit 451 will ever actually happen; it’s a pretty extreme outlook. However, isn’t it also a mistake to think that type of society happened overnight? Wouldn’t it be more realistic to think it happened piece by piece, so gradually that no one even noticed? By putting our entire lives (pictures, places, events, comments) online, are we already on that path? Could we even change our online social behaviors at this point?
Regardless of these somewhat haunting questions, I’m completely addicted to Facebook. I can’t remember life before it; I can’t imagine life without it. I love when new features come out that make my life easier and connect more people, and I’m probably going to go on facebooking until something “truly scary” happens. My threshold seems to be higher than others who criticize Facebook, though I do find it a little ironic that those same people are doing the criticizing from their Facebook accounts and continue using the service regardless. Is there part of me that worries about what a company with so much personal data could do with said data? Absolutely. But for now, it seems that Facebook will be having privacy audits (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1111/69316.html) for the foreseeable future. And that’s good enough for me.