Dear Friend and Reader,
While in Dublin over Christmas, I popped into the Lighthouse Cinema, a gorgeous new independent theater, to watch Etz Limon (Lemon Tree): a film about the Israel-Palestine conflict, shot through the perspective of two middle-aged women. In one scene, the wife of an Israeli politician divulged Palestinian sympathies to her best friend, who also happens to be a reporter. The next day, the wife’s opinion was all over the news.
Living in the Internet age is like having a best friend who’s a reporter, and if you are part of a social networking site like Facebook, your best friend really is a reporter.
Every photograph that’s taken, every place you go with someone is a potential news headline in the life of you and those around you.
On Feb. 15, news broke that Facebook made an attempt to hang onto your information for itself by changing its terms of use agreement. The Consumerist, a blog whose parent company also publishes Consumer Report, broke the story. Based on your privacy settings, Facebook has control over the information you publish on your page, and can reuse it whenever and however it sees fit, including articles that are posted as links from other websites. This would mean that Facebook has the right to reuse and manipulate this article you’re reading right now, because I posted it on my Facebook page.
What changed in the new Terms of Service agreement was what happens when you delete your page: previously, your content went with it. In the new Terms, Facebook got to keep your info.В Eric has likened this to Ice-nine, the chemical referenced in Kurt Vonnegut’sВ Cat’s Cradle.В Everything Ice-nine touched became Ice-nine, and everything Facebook hosts becomes Facebook.
There was massive public outcry over this, and three days laterВ they went back to their old termsВ and claimed sloppy contract writing as the reason for this near-massive infringement on our privacy and ownership rights.
Some people, like me, don’t mind if everyone knows they went out to a metal show last weekend because of a tagged photo that someone else uploaded (in Facebook, you can select and identify a person in a photograph). For others, this is the greatest invasion of privacy imaginable. It seems the only places off limits from comment are places you go to alone.
On Tuesday, Eric posted a two-part article from the archives on Chiron in Aquarius, where he described the feeling of alienation you get when sitting at a table of friends and realizing you don’t have the same opinion as them. It can be a very lonely place.
We live in a world of multiple communities, with multiple opportunities to judge and be judged: in truth, we always did, but the blur between them all is new. With the increased opportunity to find people who are like-minded, there is at least as great a chance that you’ll find people who disagree with or misunderstand you. Sure, look what happened to me with the Christian Science community over the last few months. When you’re publicly or semi-publicly presenting yourself, you don’t always know who’s taking notes.
Five years ago, before Facebook (which went public on Feb. 4, 2004), my girlfriend’s brother, my best friend from high school’s mother, my ex-boyfriend, and my Finnish friend from grad school would not be privy to the same information about me. Now they are, and they all saw a picture of me stuffing a forkful of food into my mouth at a birthday party last winter.
The whole experience of fast-travelling and widespread personal biographies is both a blessing and a curse. It must be thrilling to have a newborn baby and send that picture out into the world further than you ever could before. It must be horrifying to find that hundreds have passed around a personal photograph of you in your birthday suit, meant for two eyes only.
While we can bemoan the downfalls of progress, it’s a fact that it’s increasingly impossible to live a double-life these days. Your boss can Google you, potential partners can read your resume online, and the government can probably find all that and the naked pictures. Steve Bergstein, Planet Waves’ civil rights lawyer and Psychsound blogger, wrote an article this week on the erosion of the Fourth Amendment and the exclusionary rule. This means it’s even more likely that your personal data can be rifled through, legally.
So what do we do with this information?
There is the obvious reaction to be terrified, horrified, angered. And yes, it’s natural to feel all these things about the erosion of the exclusionary rule.
But as far as the rest of it goes, transparency can be a good thing for us. If it’s harder to hide who we are, it should be easier to be open and honest. If we’re all vulnerable, we should be more forgiving of people’s idiosyncrasies and moments of humility. Consider it the chipping away of another Victorian era. The truth is out: we all go to the bathroom, eat, cry, meet people and occasionally photograph really badly. It’s not the prettiest or neatest liberation, but I’ll take what I can get.
Yours & truly,
Rachel Asher
Personally, I find it all totally boring. My friends have used MySpace for years to communicate – I prefer email and the phone but then, we don’t always eat at my favorite restaurant either.
As with any communication device, intake and/or response is up to the receiver.
I also experience a “Flash in the Pan” aspect to these websites, just as there is with any “latest gadget”.
Like any product we buy or don’t – it’s up to us what we do or don’t. The up-side down-side is there with ANY form of communication. Who/how/why do you trust? Are you willing to trust the universe with your personal porn videos? Then make them. Are you willing to trust the universe with your poetry or last night’s antics in written form? Then write them down and blog them to your friends online if you will.
Why would we not understand that the “virtual” world isn’t virtual at all? People will be the same no matter where they go? Why would there be no bully online if there is still a bully at school? Do we really think electronic media eliminates the human element – or rather, eliminates what any specific individual considers unacceptable?
What interesting questions arise – like, how many people do you know who watch the Super Bowl in order to see the ads? Notice how the ads have grown in popularity and then in adverstising space to advertise the advertising?
Fascinating stuff, this. In the meantime, I’m blowing the dust off Marshall McLuhan’s “Understanding Media”…………
Hey Gardner,
I get what you’re saying, but I live in a multi-generational home and neighborhood already, so I keep in touch on a fairly regular basis as it is, hence not so much MIA in my neck of woods -in fact quite the opposite. I can’t have a thought without being interrupted! 🙂
For friends and family far away though, I can see how useful it can be.
I guess it’s a matter of “friending” the people whose lives you want to be part of and not including passing acquaintances who tell you in their status updates about the brand new Mac they bought along with the latest designer fashions. People really put inane stuff on there…..(I know this courtesy of a friend who’s on FB who reports back with this stuff :-))
For the moment I prefer to be “off the grid” as it were and to observe. Especially with all this copywrite ruckus this week….that really turned me off.
On another level though, I have to say (as a confessed TV addict who’s trying to reform) I can’t help but think this is yet another time waster in our lives. There’s good and bad I suppose on both sides of the coin. I see a lot of connections, but I also see a lot of time that could be spent in quiet contemplation thinking about things and formulating whole thoughts (not mere blurbs) to put into a book or a piece of art that you can’t do if you’re online the whole darn day reading up on other people’s lives. Not to mention having an actual meaningful conversation. Is that possible on IM?
I guess as with everything, it’s about balance and moderation, but at times I wonder if we’re severing important connections we can make with nature and the outside world. Before light pollution, our connection to the sky was impossible to avoid. Nowadays people don’t seem to be as interested because they can no longer see the sky above us -unless it’s on the internet. 😉
These are certainly interesting times we live in, and in my 4 decades on this planet, in this incarnation, i’m surprised at how far technology has come. Spoken like a true curmudgeon. 😉
p.s. speaking of technology ;-), i seem to be unable to logout of planet waves! 🙂
io,
What you say is true, but I just love it for seeing what all the nieces and nephews are up to in their lives. Weddings and funerals aren’t enough time to get to know each other, yet in the good ole days there would be at least 3 generations living in the same house, and all the relatives attended the same church and lived in the same town.
You don’t have to read everything that’s written, but when something catches your eye you can respond to it and say ‘atta-girl!’ That’s what family is for, and what has been MIA for quite a few years. It is sort of like going back in time without the headache of cleaning house and cooking for company, and you can wear your pajamas during the entire visit.
I have been kicked off Facebook three times. I violated the terms of service by impersonating a cat 🙂 yes, indeed, a cat. I find Facebook silly, but fun 🙂 Won’t go back again however. I will impersonate a cat in real life instead!
Although I can understand the value that Facebook brings into people’s lives, as a non-technophobe, I really am having a hard time getting on board with this phenomenon.
As I tell the friends that want me to hop on: “If I haven’t kept in touch with someone for years, there’s a reason for that”. I’m not really keen on connecting with people from highschool, elementary school, or work i was happy to leave behind.
Family and friends I do care about scattered all over the world? Yes, i can see how we can feel more connected. But do i want my every day to day detail and minutiae of my life splayed out on the internet, regardless of how tight the privacy settings can be? I’m not sure. I really do enjoy my privacy. And why would I want to be privy to someone’s every passing thought?
I dunno….
i do believe that little girl was a Myspace thing. they have the same basis, but are a lot different to me. granted, there is a lot of sharing going on on both networks, but facebook seems to be a lot more transparent to me. this could be because of my own take on it, indeed.
a part of my brain does not compute not trusting people. it gets me in deep doo sometimes, no doubt. my son, when he gets old enough to be on the internet, will have an in hand guidance system called Lorin.
I love facebook too, but I think Facebook owners have a responsibility to remove inappropriate material and photos. Don’t forget the little girl that killed herself over the facebook messages, and there are a lot of child molesters posing as teenagers.
I’m certain that PW polices this blog, because they removed one of my messages in the past, and i even got a stern note from Eric! LOL.
lorin:
“i figure, if i am the one putting it out there, then at least i have control about what i am saying and sharing about myself. what people make of it is their business.”
AMEN!
Entities like FaceBook should never never never have the right to make that decision for you and I. (about sharing.)
i had this moment last night on facebook where i had sent out an email to the attendees and the “maybe attendees” of my show on this coming saturday. a dear old friend and lover from out of town replied and we got to talking about some good sex, and then i had that “holy crap, is this going to that entire list of people i just messaged??” moment. because i have seen those threads on there where everyone can see everyone else’s reply.
i panicked, then i thought – i am neither Madonna nor Whore, i am both and much more mixed up into delicious me. so there. i let it go.
i used facebook for a multitude of reasons – to reconnect with family and old friends, and joke and play with close everyday friends, and to promote myself as a deejay worldwide. so i do have over 700 contacts and growing ridiculously by the day. i love it. i have lots of Aquarius placements (moon, venus, jupiter) so it makes complete sense that i would love it so much. i do have those moments where i am feeling too “put out there,” but i figure, if i am the one putting it out there, then at least i have control about what i am saying and sharing about myself. what people make of it is their business.
Do we really think that we are NOT public information – in everything we say and do – whateverthefuckFaceBook has or doesn’t have to say about it?
We are living in stupidity if we think Face Book’s policy’s have anything to do with our revealing ourselves in everything we say and do each and every moment/every day – and that it might not be permanently written in history if we just hide away and delete files.
Really All, while I live in a real world and therefore understand the uproar over FaceBooks “new policy” — on a different plane consider that meeting “strangers” on FaceBook has nothing to do with public/private. There is No Where to Hide. This is NOT a “Big Brother” fear. This point has to do with acknowledging we are all One and that we must all live our Truth, because the Truth will be told, no matter what we attempt to conceal.
Love,
Linda
You can still be shut-out by ‘friends’ on facebook if you misbehave. My daughter’s group have all cut-off a former classmate for being a prick and making threats, and they are getting ready to bounce an old girl ‘friend’ who can’t stop bragging about her accomplishments and uploading photos from high school. It used to be called ‘shunning.’ I think the controls are more effective if it is the members doing the policing but obviously sometimes you find out old classmates turned into depraved, raving maniacs.
During the election several of her friends dropped membership because of various friends’ political shouting, and then cooled off and rejoined. It is kind of like high school all over again. Actually I think facebook is a good way to sit at a table with your friends and learn to respect differences.
I love facebook for being able to keep up with relatives and look at the children’s photos, but some of the younger people have 400-500 friends, and clearly don’t have a clue what connections they are bringing into their lives. I wish more of my friends would take the leap and sign on, but my generation is a little slow to trust social networks. They could use some of the loving energy that comes through those pages. My daughter and I will sit and talk about what various people are doing and what they said and my husband is like, ‘where did you hear that!?’ and we answer, ‘facebook!’
You know, my brain’s most favoritest statue is the photo pw published of the man hanging upside down with his arse to the world. I think it was a good looking arse, as far as arse’s go. You just never know. Information has a life of its own. And we do the best we can. And we forgive ourselves our misgivings as we change. We are altogether too hard on ourselves. Isn’t that kinduv the message of the Course in Miracles (by the way I loved the swearing in thing in the next world. much ha ha ha)
We are what we are and let’s face it, there are those in the wonderful world of the internet who will distort that for their own end with less than honorable intent. It’s just like life in the physical environment. All we can do is stand. And refine. And blush. And for goodness sake, let it go, and move on. And yeah, I do know it ain’t always that easy.
Rachel! “But as far as the rest of it goes, transparency can be a good thing for us. If it’s harder to hide who we are, it should be easier to be open and honest. If we’re all vulnerable, we should be more forgiving of people’s idiosyncrasies and moments of humility. Consider it the chipping away of another Victorian era. The truth is out: we all go to the bathroom, eat, cry, meet people and occasionally photograph really badly. It’s not the prettiest or neatest liberation, but I’ll take what I can get.”
This is dead-on! I was a member of UT’s ACTLab under Sandy Stone in the early 1990s – and it was clear that this was the behemoth rolling toward us. The inner/outer interruption was going to be canceled, and we’d better get ready. This whole issue occasioned BIG discussion. What we didn’t factor for was the increase in draconian moral laws *as* privacy was being uh, ‘redefined.’
The question of more intense controls and standards on what constitutes ‘normal’ behavior is where the undertow is located. As I said to a friend a few weeks ago: what was once considered pathological is now deemed felonious. I think this shift is partly due to our increasing visibility, and the fact that there’s no ‘Just Chill Out’ secretary in the White House Cabinet.
I’m hoping it’s a cycle. No wait: I am working toward its alteration.