They have an EVERYONE option now on Status as well… does that not mean it is public?

So facebook is becoming even more twitter-like. Have they run out of ideas of their own, or have there been to many lemming genes in the pool lately?

Yes, if by “public” you mean logged into Facebook. Hahaha FAIL!

I’m sure this is great for some people, but as someone who has many open spaces on the Internet, the exact appeal of Facebook to me is that it is, for once, a more private space where only the people I choose see what I choose. Most of my profile isn’t open to my Network, and it will never been open to “everyone.” That’s kinda the whole point for me.

Oh…that’s great news for stalkers! I’m sure they will LOVE to get to know you better! I just happened to find out (by word of mouth), that if you merely type in your birthdate (as requested on your site) that a stranger is able to obtain a “certified” birth certificate for YOU and a Social Security number under YOUR name! Society is getting a little TOO open for me! Anonymous “friends” like that I can do without…I’m not that lonely!

I’m with Ice. I’m finding a lot of these so-called changes are simply more open publicity about what already exists on Facebook. The site already has numerous privacy options, one of them being completely open.

I don’t agree that privacy on the Internet is an illusion. Facebook PROVES that. No one can see it if you don’t want them to. That, to me, is the DEFINITION of privacy. Because it’s technically on the Internet doesn’t mean we can’t expect to trust the privacy control options; sure, there’s a risk, but so is leaving a hardy copy of a diary or scrapbook in your backpack for anyone to snatch and photocopy and pass around to everyone (and yes, that HAS been done in the history of the world!)

Look at it this way: we expect privacy from our online banking services and no one ever argues that point. You just have to use a certain amount of common sense when utilizing privacy options, just like every other aspect of life.

Que paso con la cuenta de Natalia Gutierrez Abuchaibe?
Porque se niega el permiso a entrar en esa pagina?
Soy la abuelita de Natalia y me gustaria me informaran el porque esta negada esa cuenta??
Gracias por su atencion

Monique Sedo
sedomonique@yahoo.com

“Ultimately the company needs to spread awareness about the movement toward openness and the trend toward more public lifestyles”

I don’t know why people always look at Facebook as their personal relationship with Facebook. It’s more than that, and though you may realize this, I feel compelled to bring this point up because we should look at this altruistically as well (I know I’m being careless in my word choice but whatever). If a ‘company’ is ’spreading’ awareness about the ‘movement’ toward openness and the trend toward ‘more public lifestyles’, we should sit back and see what that means.

I’m curious about the implications of a public lifestyle as it relates to human behavior, which eventually has tie-ins with user’s personal relationship with Facebook. So the idea is not to skip the MISSION of Facebook and solely judge it on your relationship to it, but to acknowledge the mission and its stride towards promoting more public lifestyles. Public lifestyles can be a good thing.. right?

Smaller societies create more public lifestyles. P.L’s are a byproduct of people knowing what’s happening with others. The downside is that people talk shit. The upside is that people are forced to adapt their lifestyles. Since the majority of people are about ‘good’ (good vs evil), then those that have righteous qualities and add value (or have some other trait about them (i.e funny, smart) that they make known actively or passively such as through having pictures or writing notes) will be the ones that will be pushed up in the social hierarchies (and I use the word hierarchy carelessly). Actually to think about it.. I can’t really continue this train of thought because I feel like where I’m heading with this comment wouldn’t be useful (but how do I know what is useful? and to how many people should a comment be useful before I should publish it) to the viewers here.

This goes back to updates. Do we publish updates that are useful or not useful? Does it matter? Or is the reasoning conditional.. such as ‘if a user has so and so # of followers to her updates, then she must actively publish that which is useful.

Ok so this is becoming a bit strange now. Now I’m thinking about how updates can be useful and when ’should’ they be.. but for me to actually say something useful here (we’ve assumed by now that I like to write with a purpose hence the use of the term useful) I’ll have to establish a philosophical foundation which we don’t have the time for here.

So let’s just connect this point back to the original issue of ‘more public lifestyles’. I think more public lifestyles will filter out the productive ones from the less productive ones in terms of spreading awareness and information of righteous and beneficial issues that will tend to help people more so than harm (and obviously the benefit gained from reading someones update or tweet will have to be implicit in order for my statement to hold up).

Another cool thing to think about is how this will be a long term play in uploading our brains. Will there eventually be technology that allows feeds to be published when our brain interacts with a computer-brain interface device? If there is some synaptic connections inside my brain that may be useful to another person.. would those get published? If I gathered all this information, which required ATP which came from consuming food which was grown by farmers or manufactured somewhere and could have gone to feeding someone else,.. if I gathered all this information.. can I store it? Should I store it? How will this play into overpopulation?

Should more benefits go to those that publish useful feeds more? Who will judge the usefulness and how fast should they have to do it? Would the incentive to share your knowledge with the world change the way the knowledge economy will arise?

Look up the knowledge economy when you have a chance.

Thanks for enduring my cascading thoughts, but please understand that this world will become increasingly targeted (privacy is a joke), amazing (the type of material our physical senses will be perceiving) and dangerous (health is the most important thing in life asides from maybe life itself.. so if synthetic genomics allows scientists to manufacture harmful agents in their basements and deploy them.. then yeh dangerous).

I challenge everyone to think about how to use communication and these new methods that have risen and become so powerful for purposes of good. Thanks

Azam Khan
azam@facebookster.com