One hick's opinion...

[Bbucko]

Perhaps it's a right-wing conspiracy by which the shadow puppeteers pulling the Facebook strings seek to tempt intelligent, free-thinking folks over to the dark side. :wink:


:lmao:
True dat...but you repeat yourself, sir.

That thought crossed my mind (in all seriousness) until I figured that it was some sort of marketing tool which is sold by FB to whoever is listed as a "cause", and that the "Dark Side" is simply availing itself of this opportunity more than others. Doesn't stop from creeping me out, though.

Redundancy is a recurrent criticism, much like verbosity

Genuinely doesn't bother me, because I'm the one who feeds the information to FB, if I didn't give them my information they couldn't market it. Genuinely I am the one who consents to the uses of this information, no one forces me to have a profile.

And like I said, I don't really care that companies buy this information in order to market their products to me, I am a consumer and I like to buy things.

Concerned and aware? Hell yeah! Bothered? Maybe not so much.

Unless there's some nefarious way of using this information by certain agencies connected with law enforcement and other governmental groups (my paranoia here is justified, though I won't discuss it beyond saying that I have been detained and questioned under oath without charge for over eight hours on a single occasion by a federal agency having committed no crime nor being directly accused of any), they can sift through whatever clues I provide. There are no (direct) links to anything connecting my FB activities to anything else I do on the web.

I have seen FB used very successfully as a marketing/networking tool by several very clever people: I'm aware of its strengths in that area, I just have no personal or professional use for any of them right now.

 

[Lex]

...

I eventually traced it back to Jason_Els. His page is still up, BTW, and I got a singularly creepy suggestion to "renew contact" and write something on his wall

There was an interesting story in the NY Times about this growing trend (I read it just earlier today). His parents would need to contact FB and let them know he is no longer with us (if they want it to either become a memorial or taken down).

More: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/technology/18death.html?ref=technology

There are certain things I find intriguing about a place like FB, but my current life is more about avoiding people with whom I want no further contact than it is about connecting with old acquaintances or taking "friend" suggestions from some programmer's data mining program.

 

[Daisy]

Genuinely doesn't bother me, because I'm the one who feeds the information to FB, if I didn't give them my information they couldn't market it. Genuinely I am the one who consents to the uses of this information, no one forces me to have a profile.

And like I said, I don't really care that companies buy this information in order to market their products to me, I am a consumer and I like to buy things.

Agreed.

What annoys me most about Facebook is the constantly stream of consciousness type updates that some people feel compelled to write every 2 hours. "Having a coffee, going to the gym, going to sleep"
I like to know what friends are up to but not in real time!

 

[Bbucko]

There are certain things I find intriguing about a place like FB, but my current life is more about avoiding people with whom I want no further contact than it is about connecting with old acquaintances or taking "friend" suggestions from some programmer's data mining program.

Frankly, much worse than the odd "friendship" request from a total stranger are the continuing, nearly spam-like updates from casual acquaintances regarding flower patterns they'd somehow created, their current status in some inane game, or what they've just learned to "cook" via yet another of their endless and intrusive aps.

They are easy enough to scroll past, but seriously: JFC!

 

[HazelGod]

I have to give the Facebook developers props for this, though, UB...all that crap is very easy to remove from your view.

Just hover your mouse over any item in your news feed, and a Hide button will appear at the top-right corner of that item. When you click on it, you're given the option of hiding all updates from that person...or if the news item was posted by a game or application, you're given the option of hiding all updates from that source instead of from the person.

One click each to hide Mafia Wars and Farmville, and my news feed became ever so much more intelligible.

 

[Bbucko]

I have to give the Facebook developers props for this, though, UB...all that crap is very easy to remove from your view.

Just hover your mouse over any item in your news feed, and a Hide button will appear at the top-right corner of that item. When you click on it, you're given the option of hiding all updates from that person...or if the news item was posted by a game or application, you're given the option of hiding all updates from that source instead of from the person.

One click each to hide Mafia Wars and Farmville, and my news feed became ever so much more intelligible.

Thanks for the tip. Will activate immediately.

 

[D_Tim McGnaw]

Agreed.

What annoys me most about Facebook is the constantly stream of consciousness type updates that some people feel compelled to write every 2 hours. "Having a coffee, going to the gym, going to sleep"
I like to know what friends are up to but not in real time!

Yeah I hate that too, it's why I'm not such a fan of Twitter either, people use that to commentate their own lives, I mean who gives a fuck? :tongue:

 

[Bbucko]

Yeah I hate that too, it's why I'm not such a fan of Twitter either, people use that to commentate their own lives, I mean who gives a fuck? :tongue:

It just seems to invite stalkers into your life.

 

[petite]

I've only used Twitter on Christmas vacation to inform people of where I was and with whom and for how long I would be there. Using my phone to update both FB and Twitter made it possible for me to see twice as many people that I love and I would have missed than I would have been able to see if I wasn't using them. It was wonderful. It really made my holidays fun!

 

[b.c.]

What's a facebook??

Seriously though, an acquaintance of mine showed me a new cellphone (some Evo/IPod-like big screen thing) and it had some kind of map doohickey on it. The way it worked is whatever direction you pointed it in, these faces were popping up.

My friend explained these were people in the immediate area who had facebook accounts. I could see their faces, their posts... brrrr...

...gave me "the willies".

 

[AlteredEgo]

What's a facebook??

Seriously though, an acquaintance of mine showed me a new cellphone (some Evo/IPod-like big screen thing) and it had some kind of map doohickey on it. The way it worked is whatever direction you pointed it in, these faces were popping up.

My friend explained these were people in the immediate area who had facebook accounts. I could see their faces, their posts... brrrr...

...gave me "the willies".

Ewww.

I haven;t logged into Facebook in ages. I was thinking of logging in to take down my albums, and delete some info, remove a few hundred "friends" now that I no longer play any games there. Meh. When I get to it.

 

[D_Tim McGnaw]

What's a facebook??

Seriously though, an acquaintance of mine showed me a new cellphone (some Evo/IPod-like big screen thing) and it had some kind of map doohickey on it. The way it worked is whatever direction you pointed it in, these faces were popping up.

My friend explained these were people in the immediate area who had facebook accounts. I could see their faces, their posts... brrrr...

...gave me "the willies".

I quite like that Iphone ap.

 

[Enid]

I posted this a while ago, it seems appropriate to re-post in this thread:

10 Reasons To Delete Your Facebook Account

 

[b.c.]

What's a facebook??

Seriously though, an acquaintance of mine showed me a new cellphone (some Evo/IPod-like big screen thing) and it had some kind of map doohickey on it. The way it worked is whatever direction you pointed it in, these faces were popping up.

My friend explained these were people in the immediate area who had facebook accounts. I could see their faces, their posts... brrrr...

...gave me "the willies".

I quite like that Iphone ap.

...yeah? Maybe it's just one "innovation" away from the next app that will allow your neighbor to aim their Iphones in your direction and see:

(your avatar) logged in as "hilaire" @ lpsg.org/et cetera/hick's opinion

now typing, "I quite like that Iphone ap."

 

[D_Tim McGnaw]

...yeah? Maybe it's just one "innovation" away from the next app that will allow your neighbor to aim their Iphones in your direction and see:

(your avatar) logged in as "hilaire" @ lpsg.org/et cetera/hick's opinion

now typing, "I quite like that Iphone ap."

Meh I don't care, my neighbours can do what they like, twats :tongue: I've got nothing to hide.

 

[b.c.]

Meh I don't care, my neighbours can do what they like, twats :tongue: I've got nothing to hide.

Hilaire, I appreciate your point of view on the matter and of course you're entitled.

However I think that those whose aim it is to invade others' privacy and disseminate personal information rely on precisely this notion - on the argument "well if you've got nothing to hide..." This logic has been used to deflect concerns over privacy issues for decades now.

It isn't a matter of "having anything to hide". It's a matter of you having control over your own personal information and control over who has access to it (and to what extent).

Whether you log on to Christian Science Monitor.com, or Time online, or LSPG or whatever, the need for others to know is what's in question here. At risk is not only our browsing habits but other personal information such as medical, employment, and financial information.

If you neighbors can so easily monitor what you do online then so could your employer and possibly others whose business is none of theirs and who may use such information to your detriment.

The issues presented in the op are only the latest (certainly not the last) "awakening" that internet users will have as to how much of all the above is easily attainable by anyone who cares to bother.

 

[D_Tim McGnaw]

Hilaire, I appreciate your point of view on the matter and of course you're entitled.

However I think that those whose aim it is to invade others' privacy and disseminate personal information rely on precisely this notion - on the argument "well if you've got nothing to hide..." This logic has been used to deflect concerns over privacy issues for decades now.

It isn't a matter of "having anything to hide". It's a matter of you having control over your own personal information and control over who has access to it (and to what extent).

Whether you log on to Christian Science Monitor.com, or Time online, or LSPG or whatever, the need for others to know is what's in question here. At risk is not only our browsing habits but other personal information such as medical, employment, and financial information.

If you neighbors can so easily monitor what you do online then so could your employer and possibly others whose business is none of theirs and who may use such information to your detriment.

The issues presented in the op are only the latest (certainly not the last) "awakening" that internet users will have as to how much of all the above is easily attainable by anyone who cares to bother.

I'm aware of the implications of what's being discussed despite my glibness in response, I'm merely no more concerned about my privacy now than I was ten years ago.

Identity theft and stalking have always been possible (it's a kind of here-and-now chauvinism which presumes that these crimes are a modern phenomenon), I'm not convinced that current technological developments genuinely and quantitatively make these kinds of thing any easier than they may have been before.

I'm certainly not perturbed by the uses which governments may try to put my personal information, ultimately as someone who espouses existential nihilism I accept that much of what happens to me in life is beyond my direct control, if my government wants my information and wishes to use it against me in some way, and is completely set upon that course of action, I'm unlikely to be able to stop them from doing so, the same applies to massively powerful corporations.

Ultimately I am in control of nothing but my own actions, and as far as the internet is concerned I am completely in control of how I use it and what I use it for, if I use it in ways which might be used against me in some way then I take that risk in doing so, if I wish to avoid any possible ill effects from my use of the internet there's a simple solution. Avoid that kind of usage.