“Facebook”

I feel like I’ve blogged way too much about Facebook as of late, but there always seems to be a new angle to explore. I’ve complained before about Facebook suggesting you friend people…sometimes the annoyance of friend suggestions are as simple as being suggested to friend someone who was mean to you in high school. But sometimes facebook asks you to friend people who have abused you in some way. It makes using facebook a little less desirable because friendship suggestions are based on mutual friendships–not on interests or something else that would be way more helpful in my opinion.

Recently, a woman wrote in the NY Times that facebook had suggested she friend a guy that raped her as a pre-teen.

Thirty-eight years later, I browsed through the Facebook friends of the boy who was the first to rape me, noticing names I remembered from high school. In his recent photos were snapshots of a boy with his nose and a pretty teenage girl with long silky hair parted in the middle. He gripped a beer while his belly drooped over his jeans. I found some older photos of his wedding, him with a pretty young bride.

So I went back to his profile page and typed a private message: “I hope that night has haunted you. I was naïve and a virgin. I see you have a teenage daughter now. Better keep her safe from guys like you.”

I wanted to hate him and hurt him but realized that the only way to be free was to let it all go. When I defriended him I felt strong. The past was the past, and my mouth wasn’t covered anymore.

It’s a pretty powerful story, I’d suggest everyone read the whole thing.

When social media first took off, all folks talked about is how disconnected we were becoming. And the end result seems to be the opposite–we can’t leave things and people behind anymore no matter how hard we try!! Unless, of course, we choose not to participate in a part of society that may happen online but has very real life incentives in addition to the consequences.

Sidebar: Some of the commenters blamed the writer for not telling the man’s wife he was a rapist. I’m not so sure about that…mainly because I believe that women who are involved with those kinds of men often are already aware, assuming he hasn’t changed in all those years. I’m not sure. It was on my mind, though.

One thing I’ve noticed about folks on facebook is that many seem to understand the dangers of having certain information searchable for employers. And, for the most part it seems, people with white collar jobs where that sort of thing tends to matter more are a little less public with sharing things that might get them fired. Although, it must be stated, that most people still aren’t making full use of their privacy settings.

But the other side to facebook “danger” is the use of information: traced clicks, having your information sold, or, my personal favorite, facebook smacking one of your profile pics beside some ad for a company that you know nothing about. Those are the things that only savvy heavy internet users tend to pay attention to and care about. The proof of that is in the fact that no matter how much tech and personal privacy sites put out about facebook-or how much advocacy groups sue the site–people are still using it and sites are still asking you to use facebook to connect. Not too long ago, facebook was tracking users’ activity AFTER they’d logged off. That story barely was a blip on the radar.

For a long time I refused to ever connect facebook to anything. It was the principle of the thing. But now I’ve succumbed. Why? cause it’s soooo much easier than plugging in a user names and password. And for someone who has a blog where they need to comment on other sites more often, facebook makes the whole thing easier. I’ve actually decided that when my sports blog is redesigned, I’m going to move all comments on the facebook page a la Grantland.

A few readers have already complained about this. My response: I’m sorry..perhaps you should get a dummy account.

I know they think I’m being a little arrogant suggesting that they create a faux facebook account just to comment on my blog, but my advice is really less about my blog and more about using the internet to your advantage. Something I think we all should be looking to do.

Facebook is largely in control and now the only thing we can do in rebellion is to get more out of the site than it gets out of us. There’s no rule saying you can’t have a facebook page with a dumb photo, a fake location, and no status updates. Hell, a lot of people do that for their regular accounts. A dummy account is a convenient way to leverage the partnership that facebook has with some of your favorite sites while still retaining control over the information you post–or in this case the information you don’t.

For many folks facebook is a way to connect with former classmates and colleagues and others that you are interested in enough to know what’s going on in their lives but not entertained by enough to follow on twitter–assuming they even tweet. Secondarily, facebook is a photo storage and sharing site. And it’s really hard to beat. But I see facebook’s primary role being altered to a middle man between you and the rest of the web. And opening your private data to a middle man rarely works out well, ask anyone who’s been taken down in a ponzi scheme.

I’m happy with my decision to use a facebook dummy account. And honestly it’s not all that dummy—my real location and alma mater is on there. I also have ONE profile photo. If anyone tags me in a photo, I disconnect the tag. I’m not opposed to unfriending the person either. I don’t have a “regular” account because facebook just isn’t “for me” anymore. I’m connected in so many other ways.

So…I’m wondering, am I the only one thinking dummy accounts should rise in popularity?

It’s really easy to look at this clip from Today’s Show in 1994 and snicker a little bit. If you’re around my age (28) you’ve grown up with the internet for most of your life, if not all of it. And many of us who read blogs, tweet, facebook etc consider ourselves to be pretty internet savvy. But, on a whole, are we really net savvy as a society?

I would say…not really. In fact, according to the NY Times a full 28% of Americans don’t use the internet at all. I grew up in a rural area and didn’t get access to internet consistently until 2000, the year I went to college. I still remember very well life without the internet–and honestly, it wasn’t all that bad.

But moving on to those who do use the internet, there’s lots of signs that “use” doesn’t equal “knowledge.” There’s still a frightening number of facebook users who have no grasp of the need to adjust their privacy settings. Even more aren’t aware that privacy is even an issue as they allow more and more applications to access their information. Last week my facebook stream (which I rarely ever bother to read) was full of people panicking about their phone numbers and the numbers of their phone contacts being openly visible on facebook.

Since these privacy issues began, rather than learning every little detail, I’ve chosen to take the safe route and scrape facebook of everything except my name and profile picture. That doesn’t make me savvy, just cautious.

And what about spyware and phishing sites? People still struggle telling legitimate sites from fake sites, and and surf the web with outdated virus software. I think on some level Microsoft relies on this ignorance because it’s one of the biggest reasons people buy new PCs. When my PC died, I avoided responsibility by buying a Mac. I’d never return to PC.

But those are just individual decisions, what about the media and government’s understanding of the internet, and more specifically, social networks?

I’m working on a post about the media’s over and mis-emphasis on social networking’s role in the uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa. It’d be silly to imply that social media didn’t play a significant role. Facebook and twitter have been used for everything from informing protesters of places and times to meet to helping reporters find witnesses for stories or travel across borders.

But in many ways, the media is talking about social media in a way that gives it more credit than it deserves. After all, there are people behind these computers and simply using social media doesn’t make one effective at it. Further, the emphasis on digital revolutions is tone deaf given the lives lost or altered forever in these uprisings. Like so many things social network-related, I find myself asking “what about the human element?”

Finally, this year the government will have to make some big decisions on net neutrality. As companies like Comcast and Verizon spar about various services and territory, all the average consumer can do is sit back and hope internet service gets better and cheaper. We’re largely at the whim of corporations whether we’re informed or not.

Lately, the Obama administration has had to defend its position on net neutrality. This, a full 2 years into the President’s term. The internet and how we use it and how its provided to us is one of the most pressing matters of this generation. But I can’t help but wonder if the people who will make the biggest decisions about it–from Congress to the President–are about as knowledgeable as The Today show hosts were in 1994.

Facebook is, once again, under criticism for not protecting its users’ privacy. Apparently applications have been sharing your information without your knowledge. Over the past year Facebook has had numerous security breaches–even one breach that allowed your friends to read your private messages–not to mention the changes it made to privacy settings without much warning.

I could go down the list of reasons we should all be careful what we share on Facebook, but it won’t matter. The reality is Facebook can do whatever it wants because the average user is too informationally disconnected to realize how consequential use of the site can be.

The average user of Facebook doesn’t mess with the privacy settings at all. I still know people who don’t know that privacy settings even exist!

One columnist broke down all the many reasons we should care about our privacy on Facebook. I bet I was one of about 25 that read it and took it seriously. Numerous journalists have written instructions for how you should manage your privacy settings, but, once again, not many people do.

I guess my question is what would it take to make people hold Facebook accountable for its missteps?

I deleted my Facebook account earlier this year and created a new one from scratch where I do share my real name but not much else. I felt pressured to maintain my facebook page because, no matter how I may feel about the site, the vast majority of people I know who use the site think it’s great.

As a compromise to my dwindling social media principles, I clear out my wall every couple of days, I don’t post pictures beyond my profile picture, I haven’t joined any networks or groups, and mostly don’t use the site beyond changing my status once maybe twice a day and accepting friend requests.

Still that’s quite a bit of activity for a web site I claim to be unable to stand.

I fear we are so concerned with keeping our easy connections we’ll allow the site to do anything as long as it remains free. But your privacy is precious whether you realize it or not, anytime you use real information on the site you are, in actuality, compensating Facebook for the time you spend using the site.

As a heavy user of twitter, I’m afraid that the site is looking at how facebook operates and is thinking that if they can only get a little more popular they can begin to do whatever they want too.

So what do yall think, are we all Facebook’s bitches?

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