saving face...book

So there is this new facebook feature called a news feed that shows you what your friends are up to.. as in, who they recently added as friends, what parts of their profile they changed, and what they wrote on other people's walls, in an up-to-the-minute newsreel format.

And people are pissed!

I am not a facebook user. But I get the idea. And I do use my defunct, neglected account to look people up from time to time. So I ask, then, what is the big deal?

The way I see it, anyone can check your friends list at 10.14 and again at 10.16 and note the changes, but if that same person has a feed that tells them whom you added at 10.15, this is a problem.

Apparently this is some major breach of privacy. Privacy? On facebook?? Chances are if you've put up your pictures and birthday and favorite movies and books and quotes you're not a huge fan of privacy. In fact, I would argue you're something of an exhibitionist.

Yes, you don't want anyone to see except those you deisgnate as your “friends”. But who on facebook has friends who are actually their friends? If you've met someone once, or know someone who knows a friend of yours, chances are they’re on your friends list. And they can see all your friends and your favorite books and when your birthday is. So obviously you are letting them into whatever farcical facebook world you subscribe to. The newsreel feature only reports on activities among your “friends” anyway, so what's the problem?

So some friends are better than others, I see that. Only certain friends need to know certain things. But even then, what's so private about what you're putting up for all to see? Granted, I am not a user, and maybe I would understand if I were. But I don't get it. It's not as if facebook posts are incredibly profound. They generally range from the mundane -- "Yo! long time! let's get 2getha dis week sumtime!" -- to the arcane -- "hmm... ure shirt looks familiar ;)" -- to the inane -- "why do elephants have eyebrows neway =P?"

So what's there to hide?

Now, to those who claim that they're on facebook to keep in touch with people, I ask why your friends list has people on it whom you can't even remember having met. Are these the people you want to keep in touch with? And are you really keeping in touch by asking them "wot dey r up 2" every six weeks or so?

Now I mentioned I am guilty of the occcasional stalking on facebook. So defenders of the facebook boycott try to corner me by asking "What if everyone could see every time you visited somebody's profile? Would you like that?" And I answer "No. I would hate that." But here's the thing. I never put anything up about having visited these people's pages, never published it, never shared it with anyone, never spoke about it or wrote about it. In fact, I meant it to be discreet in every possible sense. You, on the other hand, put up your relaionship status for all to see. And now you're complaining that they saw it. I was merely accessing publicly available information. You were making it publicly available. There is a difference.

This is cyberspace. If you're putting something up, you'd better be damn sure you want people to see it. If you don't, don't let people in, or don't put it up.

You wanted to be connected. So now you are. Get used to it.