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Keeping an eagle eye on tagged photos This is one of the things that goes beyond Facebook as a platform and technology and becomes a cultural issue. You can de

Keeping an eagle eye on tagged photos This is one of the things that goes beyond Facebook as a platform and technology and becomes a cultural issue. You can delete your Facebook account or never get on Facebook in the first place, but that won't stop people from publishing photos of you on it. I can't help feeling it has become socially acceptable for your friends or even acquaintances to publish photos of you on the Internet. Facebook is now an integral part of our culture. Its precipitous growth is owed to the fact that it works only if it’s massive. The more people participate, the more utility it has, and the more utility it has, the more compulsory participation becomes. And this is precisely why so many people are making a fuss about Facebook's privacy policy and attitude towards privacy. Whether we all like it or not, Facebook has become a part of our global culture and it influences the way we think and behave. If part of its influence is to encourage you to stop caring about your privacy -- or even to simply refrain from reminding you to take care of it -- then we won't need to worry about anyone taking our privacy away; we, the society, will give it up on our own.

JadeNB 16y ago
> Facebook is now an integral part of our culture. Its precipitous growth is owed to the fact that it works only if it’s massive. The more people participate, the more utility it has, and the more utility it has, the more compulsory participation becomes. I came to mention exactly this same sentence. Maybe it's just that I'm out of the loop—but I'm 30, not a complete technological outsider, and I have never used Facebook or felt any pressure to do so. In what sense is this participation compulsory? I'd have liked to see some more elaboration on this principle that seems often to be taken for granted. (I'd particularly be interested to hear an argument that couldn't also have been applied to AOL in the early '90's—I really did consider it vital to be there to communicate with out-of-state friends without enormous phone bills, but the notion nowadays of participation in AOL being compulsory is laughable.)
- CodeMage 16y ago
  It's not really compulsory in the sense that someone is making you participate. It's simply the peer pressure. Here's some "anecdata" to illustrate the point: I don't have a Facebook account anymore, but my wife does. Anyone among my friends and family who wants to see my son's photos is told to go to my wife's photo gallery. Sure, we could use Picasa or Flickr or even e-mail, but she's already using Facebook and it's easier that way. So if a friend or family member wants to see the photos and doesn't have a Facebook account, they have an additional small incentive to get one. Facebook has become one of those things everyone mentions now and then. You can use it to keep in touch with high school friends (even those you didn't like in the first place), to exchange gossip, to kill time (if you think mindlessly watching TV is the worst you can do with your time, think again), etc. If everyone around you uses it for something and mentions it often enough, you'll feel left out of that. Those of us who can say "well, I'm glad to be left out of that" are a minority.
adamdecaf 16y ago
> then we won't need to worry about anyone taking our privacy away; we, the society, will give it up on our own. What I don't get is how that doesn't scare people. You would think that most people wouldn't want all of their life exposed, but maybe most people just don't get it yet.

JadeNB 16y ago

> Facebook is now an integral part of our culture. Its precipitous growth is owed to the fact that it works only if it’s massive. The more people participate, the more utility it has, and the more utility it has, the more compulsory participation becomes. I came to mention exactly this same sentence. Maybe it's just that I'm out of the loop—but I'm 30, not a complete technological outsider, and I have never used Facebook or felt any pressure to do so. In what sense is this participation compulsory? I'd have liked to see some more elaboration on this principle that seems often to be taken for granted. (I'd particularly be interested to hear an argument that couldn't also have been applied to AOL in the early '90's—I really did consider it vital to be there to communicate with out-of-state friends without enormous phone bills, but the notion nowadays of participation in AOL being compulsory is laughable.)

CodeMage 16y ago
It's not really compulsory in the sense that someone is making you participate. It's simply the peer pressure. Here's some "anecdata" to illustrate the point: I don't have a Facebook account anymore, but my wife does. Anyone among my friends and family who wants to see my son's photos is told to go to my wife's photo gallery. Sure, we could use Picasa or Flickr or even e-mail, but she's already using Facebook and it's easier that way. So if a friend or family member wants to see the photos and doesn't have a Facebook account, they have an additional small incentive to get one. Facebook has become one of those things everyone mentions now and then. You can use it to keep in touch with high school friends (even those you didn't like in the first place), to exchange gossip, to kill time (if you think mindlessly watching TV is the worst you can do with your time, think again), etc. If everyone around you uses it for something and mentions it often enough, you'll feel left out of that. Those of us who can say "well, I'm glad to be left out of that" are a minority.

adamdecaf 16y ago

> then we won't need to worry about anyone taking our privacy away; we, the society, will give it up on our own. What I don't get is how that doesn't scare people. You would think that most people wouldn't want all of their life exposed, but maybe most people just don't get it yet.