Facebook Me, Not

Digital art that I shot with my cheap digital camera and then altered my own self.  So copyright police, please go away now.  ~radical sapphoq


There are a whole lot of people around me who appear to me to have gone nutty over Facebook.  "Facebook me," has become a common expression within the crowd.  The question I am asked most frequently by acquaintances these days is, "Are you on Facebook?"

No, I am not on Facebook, and no, I will not "Facebook you."  I hate Facebook.  I deplore Facebook.  And in fact, I want nothing to do with Facebook.  I am not a Luddite.  I am not anti-technology.  In fact, I am into technology in a very real way.  I also like my privacy.  This movement among giant companies that we must use our "wallet names"-- i.e. legal names-- in order to sign up for the latest social network craze I think is a very bad idea.  One of the excuses given for the necessity of using our real names is that somehow this will make us all kinder people on the Internet.  Here's a news flash: No, it won't.

The thing is, even a voluntary "Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights"  fantasy essay is exactly that-- fantasy.  There is no true privacy on the Internet.  Some of us know this and we use nicknames or pen names, much as I have chosen to do.  To be sure, we can still be found.  But, at least the less sophisticated  will have to think about how to do it for a few minutes first.  Furthermore, in order to identify who we are in "real life," an advertising agency [my own bias is revealed here, I believe the demand for our wallet names have more to do with the desire to foist ads on me and target me for snail mailing lists than the idea that we will transform into non-assholes] or individual up to no good need three pieces of information.  Those three pieces of information are birthdate, gender-- male or female, and zip code.  And that's it.  How many of us have signed up to blog at sites which don't demand our wallet names but do want our birthdates, gender, and zip code?

There are several approaches to this invasion of privacy.  The first one is to unplug the computer and to avoid leaving a paper trail in real life.  The second is to be very conscious of our digital footprints by using temporary wifi cards in cafes, libraries, or other public places to connect.  If we must use the social networking scene, we can develop several sock puppets to use on various sites (one per site, not all socks in all sites like some trolls might).  If we go that way or if we use a home computer, it is a great idea to use one browser per social networking site as well and invest in anonymous e-mail such as CounterMail.  The other thing of course goes without saying: invest in a good vpn, proxies, onion routers [not Tor by the way] and use several layers of the same to cover our Mac addys and our ISP numbers.  Privacy precautions are only as good as the person using them.  Having the best in non-tracking electronic ware does nothing if we blog or tweet about our birthdays, the weather in our area, or things that can cause others to accurately guess our gender.  And using social networking sites or cruising the Internet or shopping on-line during worktime-- even at those rare companies that claim they "don't mind"-- forget about it.  Bad idea.

One of the things that I have seen social networking sites used for that I think is a most excellent use is to for activist-related events and for news-sharing.  Folks who are prone to that sort of thing know what the risks are and tend not to give out their true wallet names, birthdates, or zip codes.  Any other use of social networking sites to me is just mental masturbation.


radical sapphoq says: I don't do Facebook.  I don't upload pictures of myself or family or friends to the Internet.  Any information I give out on-line to companies like Google-is-Evil-Now is on a need-to-know basis. 


http://internetrightsandprinciples.org/

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/02/23/fact-sheet-plan-protect-privacy-internet-age-adopting-consumer-privacy-b

http://internetjustice.blogspot.com/2010/06/right-to-privacy-on-internet.html

http://money.cnn.com/2012/02/23/technology/privacy_bill_of_rights/

http://legallyeasy.rocketlawyer.com/will-americans-soon-have-an-online-bill-of-rights-94566

http://legallyeasy.rocketlawyer.com/as-yelp-rises-free-speech-and-business-reputations-can-conflict-94582

http://legallyeasy.rocketlawyer.com/episode-57-internet-privacy-and-the-right-to-be-forgotten-94520

http://heresthethingblog.com/2012/02/23/10-tacky-avoid-posting-facebook/


http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/02/24/privacy-bill-of-rights/?section=money_technology

http://news.yahoo.com/white-house-privacy-push-seeks-cooperation-001448521.html

http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrymagid/2012/02/24/facebook-users-becoming-more-privacy-savvy/

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/social-network-users-regret-posts-study-294815

http://www.datamation.com/news/as-privacy-concerns-grow-more-social-media-users-are-unfriending.html

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/24/internet-privacy-pew-idUSL2E8DO87R20120224

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505363_162-57384459/beware-digital-tattoos-while-browsing/

http://my.hsj.org/Schools/Newspaper/tabid/100/view/frontpage/articleid/503256/newspaperid/411/The_Internet_Never_Forgets.aspx