Steven Levy in “The Burden of Twitter” on Wired has this to say about social networking [^]:
Because of time constraints and just plain reticence, I worry that I’m snatching morsels from the information food bank without making any donations. Instead of healthy, reciprocal participation, I’m flirting with parasitic voyeurism. . .
Steven Levy – Wired [^]
This is one article that does not decry social networking as the ultimate invasion of privacy – no-one is forced to FaceBook , Twitter or blog. We choose what we share and who we share with. Just make sure that you check your account settings in FaceBook.
Do we all go through bouts of lurking, followed by big blurts of self-confession? How many other people feel remorse at going to the all you can eat gossip bar, and leaving nothing in return? Or is it worse to show up only occasionally to hang-out with your friends?
Facebook Privacy Settings
Are you terminally bewildered when you want to edit your Facebook privacy settings? Well the NY Times has proved that you are not alone, it turns out that there are more than 170 options [^]. And to make matters worse, not all of the options are where you would expect to find them!
All this makes it even harder for the users to be sure of what bits of “their” information Facebook is showing the world, or Google. Also in the article is a word count of the site’s privacy statement – from 1,004 words in 2005 to today’s 5,830. Does anyone read them all?
Good news, Wired have just reported that Facebook’s Head of Public Policy, Tim Sparapani, has announced that new “simplistic” privacy options [^] will be launched in coming weeks. Apparently this has came about as a result of the recent user backlash about privacy changes.
If you are fed-up with the treatment you get LifeHacker has a guide on how to set-up a minimalist Facebook profile [^]. Another option is the the reclaimprivacy.org [^] bookmark that scans your Facebook profile and shows you a summary of your privacy settings. The bookmark also displays links to the various settings, making changing them a lot easier.
Of course there is always the self destruct option of deleting your account!