Facebook is collecting information about you from other sources
This post is initially inspired by the following flash presentation: http://albumoftheday.com/facebook/
I can’t vouch for its final conclusions, but the rest is verifiable. Check your Facebook “agreement” for corroboration. In short, the film quotes Facebook’s privacy policy as stating the following:
Facebook may also collect information about you from other sources, such as newspapers, blogs, instant messaging services, and other users of the Facebook service through the operation of the service (e.g., photo tags) in order to provide you with more useful information and a more personalized experience.
I copy-pasted that from the privacy page, so yes, it really says that (it’s under “the information we collect,” for other Facebook users out there…).
My parents’ generation – perhaps as a result of Watergate and the Red Scare? – believes a free society must control its information as follows: the government must keep all actions as ‘transparent’ as possible, and the citizens must keep their information hidden.
“Opaque” citizens and a “transparent” government promote government by the rules, because any actions outside the realm of sanctioned law and order will be seen by the citizens – and on the other hand, without good personal information, government officials will find it more difficult to get “leverage” on the citizens. Thus bribery/extortion/torture/campaign financing/etc etc etc become more difficult from both sides of the White House fence.
However, this opacity has lost its strength in the face of modern technology and attitudes.
Perhaps we need a new definition of “freedom” these days.
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the power of comprehension
Information on its own is just facts. Information in the wrong hands can be dangerous, or even deadly. Knowledge – information that’s been organized and is understood (“comprehensed” is the word i really want)- is power. We live in an era of networks, not neighborhoods, a time where information itself is a fungible element of power.
The principle of “fungibility” or “fungible power” states that a nation can use power in one realm (say, military) to get power in another (like economic power). Economic sanctions are a pretty good example of the fungible nature of power…
Leaving aside prosaic concerns about data privacy, like the piracy of social security and credit card numbers, I’m still uncomfortable with the idea that a great deal of information about me, personally, is floating in marketing and government databases. Don’t get me wrong: I’m hugely in favor of technology, networking, and stored information (hell, I’ll be starting a new technology job in a month, will be working with a major networking and information storage firm). I’m not uncomfortable with a digitized lifestyle. I’m simply uncomfortable about the ramifications. Here’s why:
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(I believe) “Space” is a necessary element in any civilized society
Social networks have historically existed both in the matrix and the interstices of law and government… we all need to feel we’re gaming the system, just a little, and sometimes we all need to feel we’re making it better, but off the record.
(me: “…and found wanting,” October 12, ‘07)
Humans aren’t perfect. We aren’t now, we never will be. We have good days. We have bad days. We have days where we just don’t give a fuck. Or weeks. Or years. Sometimes, you need to come to the end of yourself to find a way forward again.
One of my favorite people is an ex-heroin addict, ex-coke addict, ex-alcoholic. He spent ten, fifteen years screwing around, and then he met this woman who loved him back. I met him after he’d quit everything, even the drinking, after he decided to change his life for the woman that’s now his wife. Today, he’s finished school, he’s doing a medical/technical internship, he’ll be a professional next year. Great sense of humor, patient beyond belief. Tattoos everywhere.
And here’s the thing: He’s a great guy, and he’s the kind of guy who really should benefit the American system, which purports to be the kind of system that always gives a second chance, that believes in the ability of people and nations to turn themselves around, that believes in the goodness of capitalism, a free market, and the basic right of those who wish to succeed to do so, whatever their past.
But he’s part of the old guard.
There aren’t any pictures of him shooting up online. He never immortalized his dealer friendships via Facebook. His runins with cops are likely not youtubed/blogged about/whatever. He doesn’t post his life online. Ergo, aside from his police record, he’s a blank slate to employers. Typing his name into google gets you nowhere.
In other words, time and a lack of precise record keeping has given him a kind of “space” that allows him to move forward – just as the same social “space” let him get away with many more (minor, hopefully!) criminal actions than he was ever convicted for.
I think that, today, the internet and the permanence/uncontrollability of personal information really make this kind of social space much harder to come by.
The internet, in other words, can really hinder one’s rise away from a murky past.
Or, if you will, it’s necessary to understand intentional data control from a young age in order to avoid ruining your own future via the follies of youth.
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One more thought on Facebook
I’m not sure how we can justify teaching this kind of data control/intentional privacy when we have such a large population of gradeschoolers who can barely read, but it’s not less important because other issues take precedence. One more note, again from Facebook:
You understand and acknowledge that, even after removal, copies of User Content may remain viewable in cached and archived pages or if other Users have copied or stored your User Content.
.…Removed information may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time but will not be generally available to members of Facebook…
It’s that last section that really gets me; a corporation, however harmless, controlling all information you enter in a website, eventually gains great power. As i noted at the beginning, power is fungible. Power via information (knowledge) can turn to marketing, police (forceful) power, power of persuasion…
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So what’s the solution?
We’ve gone too far for the solution to be a restriction of information, and education seems impractical at best. If teens are drinking and driving, and texting and driving (article from the NYT today on that, actually), we have no reason to suspect they’ll make better choices when it comes to the virtual world. Furthermore, restricting companies’ use of this information has been only partially successful. Perhaps the free market (and a capitalist, moderately pluralistic society?) will offer a solution. Perhaps when the CEO’s themselves grew up with Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube, they’ll give less credence to college candids. Perhaps we will ultimately become a society that only cares what you can do, and not what you do with whom on your own time.
Or perhaps we’ll move in another direction entirely.
Until then, lock your electronic doors, keep your passwords, credit cards, and social security numbers close to hand, and google yourself every once in a while, just to see what’s out there.
All the best, and stay warm – and dry! – wherever you are :)
~**~
**edit** Check out this article about a state (Arizona) that’s decided to use select information – and public humiliation – to combat drunk driving …
…defense lawyers and the spokeswoman for the national chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving said they had never heard of billboards or the Internet being used as scarlet letters…
“I just can’t believe he’s doing it,” said Mark Weingart, a defense lawyer in Tempe who has advised hundreds of people facing charges of driving under the influence. “Besides the fact that it is in bad taste, D.U.I.’s usually involve somebody with no criminal history. The downside to this person being published on the Web site is tremendous. I don’t see the point. Why doesn’t he put sex offenders up there?”
