Every now and then I get teased about the barren waste that is my Facebook account. No avatar, no personal info, a handful of University friends I haven't talked to in years, and a bunch of game messages & invitations. I often claim lack of time, but sometimes I give the honest answer that I value my privacy, which almost always gets people giggling or rolling their eyes as if I had delusions of grandeur. There is a widespread and simply misplaced belief that privacy is only a concern for Hollywood actors and politicians. I can live with that, it doesn't bother me. There is a vicious version of the belief that really gets on my nerves, though - the "nothing to hide" voyeur's argument.
It goes like this: "You don't hide anything if you have nothing to hide." This seems to be the recent trend, and it's getting worrisome for me. Facebook has been casting privacy to the winds lately, with their terms of use changing almost daily to reflect the new policies. If you have a FB account, then more and more aspects of it are going to be public, you won't have a choice and you will be poorly informed at best. Friend lists already are public. So will profiles. In the words of the FB founder, "the world is going public". I love the English language, I really do (or I wouldn't be here
). Its power to express strong concepts with a minimum of sounds is unmatched. Unfortunately, it can be used for cheesy slogans like this, as well. Have you asked the world if he's going public lately? I've left a message on his answering machine, hope he'll hit me back shortly.The Google CEO said: "if you do something you don't want anyone to know, then you probably shouldn't be doing it." This is officially scary (and definitely not the first time Google provides morality as a PDF download for the masses; turns out their motto "don't be evil" is not just a note to self) and has elicited a number of 1984 references, though I feel they miss the point somewhat. In the book, Big Brother is, if not existing as a character, at most the sum of the people who have access to the TV screens - the Inner Party, the High who are a tiny fraction of mankind. This is a more modern version of it, dyed in the colors of democracy. The Big Brother is Everyone-But-You, which is democratic and therefore good by definition (?).
That's the model I see on the media, a peer-reviewed, peer-validated and peer-judged society in which you only exist when your peers are acknowledging you. 'Esse est percipi', as they often attribute to Berkeley - to be is to be perceived, except Berkeley thought of the world as some kind of God-operated Matrix that is actually not deceptive because God is infallible. This Matrix, though, is your social network. You exist when you're posting on someone's profile, you're broadcasting the contents of your lunch on Twitter, and texting 50 people at the same time. You have to do it all the time, lest they forget and you stop existing.
Look at all those ads that tell you to communicate, to share anything that's on your mind. Get in touch with your hundreds of friends and do it now! Who cares if you, well, actually have anything to say? A study revealed that most tweets are trash. I don't think we needed a study to conclude as much. Twitter is at its best a real-time update service, or a soapbox. Facebook is, by now, a big customer survey with your preferences and habits neatly laid out for advertisers to serve (pity it didn't help much when I tried Mizahar ads on it). And Google probably knows things about me that I don't.
You may think this is mild paranoia. It's anyone's right to think so. Some call it Luddism, others just say 'get off the net then'. However, to assume bad faith only because one doesn't want to share is an insult, and to take the choice away on those grounds is disgusting. Seriously, people. There is beauty in keeping some things to yourself. Let's share what is worth sharing. Let's respect our fellows by not inflicting pointless thought-vomit and unnecessary information on them. This way people won't have to struggle to find the diamond in the rough. You don't show anything if you have nothing to show?
What can seem like small things (and thousand of people don't think so, apparently; there is a rush of closed FB accounts and I can't blame them, just imagine how many stalking victims are feeling less safe now) are actually not so small in retrospect. It's like moving the borderstones an inch to the left every night while nobody's watching. One morning you wake up in a different country, and someone will say "the world is moving to the right". So, for what little it may count, my face is unnecessary to the public at large. Hence, in spite of it not bearing resemblance of the Phantom of the Opera, FB won't have it.
But very nice post. I also heard something about phone companies giving away cellphones free as long as they could listen in on your conversations and read all your texts. 