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These things are designed to be forgotten, but with the Facebook Timeline, much of your life is all but indelible, published front and center until you go throu
by rglover 15y ago
These things are designed to be forgotten, but with the Facebook Timeline, much of your life is all but indelible, published front and center until you go through each item individually and hide or delete it.
That, right there, is why this is so terrifying. Regardless of stalkers and people who browse your past for kicks, this is an insane utility for profiling individuals down to the minutiae of every day life. What's more is that it's a catalog, itemized down to the hour of activity on your Facebook. Yes, this has been available in theory for awhile, but now it's highly accessible and easy to find and scrutinize any moment in anyone's life (that is, if they've been posting to their Facebook). The scary part: a lot of people do.
The geek in me wants to applaud Facebook for the technical achievement of the whole thing, but deep down, this just feels a bit too much like opt-in surveillance (whether that be by the government or individuals).
- sahillavingia 15y agoThat's why you have friends on Facebook, not "stalkers and people who browse your past for kicks."
- rwolf 15y agoI see talk of controls for hiding and sharing items on the timeline, and for turning the timeline on and off, but not for only making it available to your friends. The barrier to entry to browse a user's past appears to be: a Facebook account.
- HarrisonFisk 15y agoAll content on timeline follows the same privacy settings as the object has. So if you have been posting things as Friends only, all of the content will also be Friends only. If you have been posting Public updates, then it will also be Public.
- phwd 15y agoA "public" post versus a friends post[1]. And the option to switch any previously public posts to friends[2]. [1]: http://cl.ly/ANI0 http://cl.ly/ANI0 [2]: http://cl.ly/AMpv http://cl.ly/AMpv
- silverbax88 15y agoIt's so easy to find someone with just a name, town they live in and Facebook that people should be terrified with the data that's already on there. I've never understood why people put so much of themselves online, but I think the reality is that they just don't understand the ramifications.