4 ms·

Isn't privacy/anonymity in a crowd just a thing of the present? In a small village, everyone knew who you were and knew your past.

by fiter 9y ago

jerf 9y ago
Even assuming everybody in that village knows everybody else to the degree that Facebook knows you, it is at least mutual; ol' Grandma Francine knows I'm foolin' around but I know what Grandma Francine got up to when she was my age and who her daughter's real dad is, too. What private things do you know about the people serving ads to you? Nothing. Yesterday I saw someone on HN discussing their download of info from Facebook, which is supposed to include what advertisers know what, and they found they couldn't even find the advertiser's company name in Google. And ol' Grandma Francine doesn't scale. Her bad behaviors can't bend the very social fabric of society, nor is she corrupting the public square by abusing her knowledge of the townspeople to sell them things and "nudge" them and manipulate them; Grandma Francine is very talkative but not necessarily that bright, certainly not "we hired every PhD who we could get our hands on and turned them loose with an open expense line to buy hardware with" sorts of smart and manipulative.
- barronli 9y ago
  Believe it or not, the world is evolving to become smaller and like a small town gradually. Sad... no more curiousity about my neighbor towns
  - znpy 9y ago
    Is it time to start advocating against social media?
- matz1 9y ago
  So instead of privacy, I think we should push/work on transparency/openness on all side as much as possible. Facebook know everything about me, I want to know everything about facebook too.
fjsolwmv 9y ago
You could move to a new village. For bonus points you call yourself a traveling preacher for instant credibility, or claim to be some famous person
- mark_edward 9y ago
  Not really. Many peasants in Europe for example were bound to the land. In addition, moving was even more devastating then than it can be now. Mutual aid and social networks were everything, outsiders not trusted.

Isn't privacy/anonymity in a crowd just a thing of the present? In a small village, everyone knew who you were and knew your past.

by fiter 9y ago

Isn't privacy/anonymity in a crowd just a thing of the present? In a small village, everyone knew who you were and knew your past.

jerf 9y ago

Even assuming everybody in that village knows everybody else to the degree that Facebook knows you, it is at least mutual; ol' Grandma Francine knows I'm foolin' around but I know what Grandma Francine got up to when she was my age and who her daughter's real dad is, too. What private things do you know about the people serving ads to you? Nothing. Yesterday I saw someone on HN discussing their download of info from Facebook, which is supposed to include what advertisers know what, and they found they couldn't even find the advertiser's company name in Google. And ol' Grandma Francine doesn't scale. Her bad behaviors can't bend the very social fabric of society, nor is she corrupting the public square by abusing her knowledge of the townspeople to sell them things and "nudge" them and manipulate them; Grandma Francine is very talkative but not necessarily that bright, certainly not "we hired every PhD who we could get our hands on and turned them loose with an open expense line to buy hardware with" sorts of smart and manipulative.

barronli 9y ago
Believe it or not, the world is evolving to become smaller and like a small town gradually. Sad... no more curiousity about my neighbor towns
- znpy 9y ago
  Is it time to start advocating against social media?
matz1 9y ago
So instead of privacy, I think we should push/work on transparency/openness on all side as much as possible. Facebook know everything about me, I want to know everything about facebook too.

fjsolwmv 9y ago

You could move to a new village. For bonus points you call yourself a traveling preacher for instant credibility, or claim to be some famous person

mark_edward 9y ago
Not really. Many peasants in Europe for example were bound to the land. In addition, moving was even more devastating then than it can be now. Mutual aid and social networks were everything, outsiders not trusted.