Facebook and the Lack of Public Privacy

I realize that the ultimate super blogger would link to about 5 million different articles, blogs, and videos that backed up any point he makes. But let's be honest here; the Facebook privacy controversy is in essence ubiquitous these days. If you slung a dead cat in a coffee shop, it would hit a lap top that was open to an article about same. So I'll provide one link here. That will eventually lead you to several trillion more, I am sure. I have a point to make.

And actually, the point is not merely about Facebook, though as the largest social media entity currently out there, and the one with the most problems concerning privacy at the moment, it does get most of the press. My point is about social media privacy in general. But I will refer mostly to Facebook, just because I don't want to write "Facebook, and other similar social media websites," about 75 times in this post.

The general point is that I don't buy into this notion that people are wanting to be more open, simply because social media is growing at an exponential rate. Nor do I accept the often stated position that, "if you have anything to hide, don't go on Facebook." Or my favorite, "you need to let potential future employers friend you, so they can check up on you, and see if your private life fits in with their company image.

True, there may be fewer walls up between us now, and many welcome that. But too often I hear the arguement that people shouldn't object to concepts on Facebook such as Instant Personalization, because...

"After all, Facebook is a public forum...and why would you ever want to put something on Facebook that you wouldn't want your mother or priest to see?"

I've slapped my girlfriend's ass while at a coffee shop before. That's a public place, but I wouldn't proceed to make contact if just anyone was there with us. My mother, for instance.

Here's a less bawdy example. Join my on my imaginary journey into the land of metaphor.

Let's say there were a new local coffee shop. Call it, Cuptastic. It's a public place. It has bulletin boards for jobs, posters for bands, business cards in the window sills. Free Wi-Fi. Clean bathrooms. Very comfortable booths, great coffee and scones, or whatever coffee people eat when they go into such places. In other words, a great place to get coffee, to study, to hang out. Take a date. In short time it becomes the local place to get coffee.

After a while they offer regular customers free membership in their Club Cuptastic, with all kinds of wild benefits. They have cards and everything. With a card, you can get concert tickets, plane tickets, hotel reservations, and all sort of other semi-vital services right there in the store! Popularity spreads, and several more Cuptastic chains begin to open up all over town.

As you can imagine, once this happens, people are going to start getting used to the way things are, and though they can take care of all of that business elsewhere, why wouldn't they take care of it all in one convenient, hip place, at one time?

Then one day you take an out of town date into one of the stores. She HAS to see this place! And there is something new. Microphones at each of the tables. Puzzled, you order and sit down, staring at the mike. There are no signs anywhere talking about this strange new addition. You didn't get anything about it in the e-newsletter for Club Cuptastic. It's quite a surprise. What is it for?

You look around, and finally you see it; in really tiny print under the table, you finally see the explanation for the new additions. Turns out each conversation at each table is now being recorded and saved by the management, so that the next time you come into that store, you can be given a copy of it, and share with your friends what your experience was like the last time you were there, word for word. What's better, anyone else who is a member of your chapter of Club Cuptastic may request a copy of your most recent conversation at table 5, and listen to it at leisure on his I-pod.

Wait a minute...

Enraged at this, (and feeling pretty sure that not everyone in the place is aware of what the mikes are for, given how and where they are explained) you walk up to the front desk and demand to know more. You are told of course that although nobody that is up to any good should be at all worried about having their every word shared with the world, there is naturally a way to opt out of this, and get the mike at your table turned off. What a relief, you think.

All you need do is take the form the manager provides you, and get it signed by the managers of all five branches of Cuptastic, bring it back to the original branch, certify that you are a Club Cuptastic member, notify in writing each other member of your branch of Club Cupastic that they are not authorized to listen to any recording of your conversations, sign on the dotted line, and in just weeks, you can enjoy a Cuptastic Cup of Java once again at any table you select, without your conversations being recorded.

Oh, and by the way, we now take your picture automatically every time you pass through the door, and we post it, without your permission, to Cuptastic chains all over the country! If you are uncomfortable with this aspect, you'll have to leave Cuptastic, and resign your membership in the club. Sorry.

 But are you sure you want to do this? This is, after all, a whole new world evolving, and very soon, Cuptastic will be launching partnerships with restaurants and grocery stores around the state! Just think, everytime you buy something somewhere else, an email of your purchases is sent from that store to your local Cuptastic, where it is put on file, and researched so that they can make your next visit even more personalized for you!

Cuptastic knows you will love this new service. It is, after all, a public place. If anyone would be bothered by it, they would have stayed in their home, right?

You can of course opt out of this service, too. Simply obtain 4 copies of each form from each partnership company...

If you are like me, you would at this point grab your date, haul ass to the nearest Starbucks, and never again come into any Cuptastic anywhere in the world. Life is too short, and no coffee is that vital to your everyday existence. No matter how delicious. And no matter how many other grinning idiots tell you so.

That's not coffee, folks. It's kool-aid, if you catch me. And that's exactly what this business about "more openness" with social media is too. And an awful lot of people are drinking it. Gen-Y and younger in particular, but certainly not only them.

Of course the above scenario wouldn't happen so easily. Because I would venture to guess that all of us value our "public privacy". In other words, conversations that are held in a public place do not automatically open themselves up to public consumption. The fact that we are studying in a library does not indicate we are happy to have 4 or 5 people stand over our shoulder and watch us take notes. There is an assumption of privacy even when making use of public utilities. The argument that anybody has a right to get a piece of you as soon as you leave you home doesn't hold water outside of the internet. And it shouldn't hold water within the Net either.

Personal privacy, even in a public place, is something we have the option of protecting, by sitting in a booth, whispering, and so on. Facebook usage should be the same way. We should have the option. The EASY option. Not because we have "something to hide", but because it is our right, after ingraining the old Facebook into our way of life, to expect that previous safeguards on privacy for this social media giant will continue to apply.

Most will just swallow it, I imagine, because Facebook has become too convenient to abandon. I admit, things would be a pain in my ass if I deleted my account. But they would NOT come to an end. I would adapt, and move on, as would anyone. Because no social media site is worth me swearing loyalty to it's mission to become the one and only world wide social mainframe. Just as no coffee is good enough to give up all the Cuptastic wanted you to give up.

Remember that you're an individual, and not a digital pattern on somebody's hard drive.

Know all privacy settings that are available to you. Hold on to "public privacy". And whatever you do, don't buy into the notion that is being pushed on everyone that "openness" means "no privacy". Don't feel ashamed to want to keep something to yourself even if you have done nothing wrong. And if that means weaning yourself off of social media totally, so be it. Just don't drink that kool-aid.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Social Media

Five years ago, I started toying with the notion of starting a blog. Everyone was doing it, and most of the ones I read just weren't that impressive to me. I figured, "I can do that." People were getting respected and admired for writing about the dumbest of things. Hundreds of people were listening to what these bloggers had to say. Maybe even thousands in some cases. And since there was really no other way for a non-connected writer like myself to get his words and thoughts out there, I figured I would give it a go.

I didn't know code or anything like that, so I launched on a search to find a WYSIWYG template. (Though I didn't use that term then. I didn't know that was a term.)

I found Blogger, and was impressed with the simplicity. This was a writer's template, not one for computer programmers. After a few days I determined to follow the old adage, "write what you know". So I did. I chose to write advice and opinions on stage acting, while sharing my own personal adventures in same. The result was "Always Off Book", my first blog, which I still keep today.

The many followers never really showed, though certain posts I have published over the years have sparked some debate and conversation that lasted a while. Nonetheless I hold onto it out of love.

A few years later came Myspace. I saw it as a bit silly and confusing, but I reluctantly joined as a way to keep in touch with friends from a central location without having to use e-mail. I thought perhaps people would be more likley to respond to my messages if I used it. They weren't, but I held on anyway because it had some fun elements.

Then there was Facebook, which I joined with the same ill-fated mission as when I joined Myspace. It has eclipsed MySpace, but I don't understand why. It's basically the same thing. I get ignored by friends just as efficiently there as I did on Myspace.

Just before Christmas of last year, I got it in my head to start a new blog in addition to Always Off Book. You're currently reading that blog, and if you go back to entries from January you can read the story behind why this one exists.

A mere 30 or so days ago, with a very skeptical bent of mind, I joined Twitter for the first time.

In all of these actions, I was engaging in "new media" or as those within it prefer to call it now "social media".

But I am not your typical independent firebrand Gen-Y individual looking to burn my personal brand on everything that moves so I can get ahead and become location independent. (There's my SEO sentence of the day.) No, I use these things to connect with people. To do what writers do and share my ideas through writing, so that people might have a better day because of something I write. I don't need to change the world, but I want to alter it's trajectory a bit, and hopefully run into like minded people. Also to experience organic networking that would lead to bigger and better things.

In some ways, this has happened. Overall however, I don't know if I could be called a social media success story at this point. And I think I know part of the reason. It has taken me a while, but the truth has begun to dawn on me. The answer is this...

I see social media as a tool to do things. A means to an end, not the end itself.

And I believe most people, especially the "Gen-Y" types see it as the end in and of itself.

Like I told you, I joined Facebook, (and Myspace before it) to keep in touch with my friends. That is all I use if for. I don't spread a "personal brand" with it. (Let's just say right here and now that I think the overall concept of personal branding as it is currently defined is about 50% bullshit to me.)

Youtube is just for laughs. Twitter is...well I'm still working on what the hell Twitter is supposed to be for me right now.

And then there are my blogs. These are the pride and joy of my online presence. Where content IS king, dammit. (And if you don't like that I said that because it is "sooo 2007" then you are free to take your short attention span elsewhere.)

I have met some good people with social media over the years. Mostly because they found my content and it spoke to them, (which is how I wanted it to be originally), but also through intentional means. I don't mean to lump all of the new friends I have made into the same cold stew. But the social media thing really is in many ways extending beyond its own usefulness for someone like me, now that it is seen so often as more than a tool.

You know what 75% of the Tweets, blogs, videos and Facebook pages I encounter in social media are dedicated to? Social media itself. Some days it seems that many people in social media just can't shut up ABOUT it, and use it for a purpose outside of social media aggrandizement. Content consists of...

--How to get more followers on Twitter
--How Social Media Can Expand Your Business
--How Social Media Defines Your Personal Brand
--Like it or not, Privacy is dead, make sure the 10,000 People that may hire you one day approve of every last posting you ever put on Facebook ever, because they ARE going to check it. Here's how to make sure you're ok.
--SEO doesn't have to be boring, but it DOES have to be.
--Networking, Networking, and More Networking
--How to Tie your Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, Tumbler, Wordpress, and Foursquare accounts into Your Toaster.
--Not to mention the approximately 458 million posts that incorporate both "Gen-Y" and "Social Media" into their titles.

The fact is, that isn't me. Hell, I can't even get a straight answer from somebody as to whether or not I am even in Generation Y.

I am not against marketing. Businesses need to do it. Freelancers, such as I am trying to be, have to do it in regards to the services they hope to sell. I am working on it, believe me.

But I can't do all of it all of the time, every waking moment. The ubiquity of it all! The pavement pounding and the phone calls, and the ads and the networking and the back scratching and the link passing, just to get people to have a conversation with me? A conversation?? Kind of sounds like job hunting. The way it was before social media even entered our lives. Which begs the question, if it isn't any easier than it used to be to connect with people for non-retail purposes, has social media served a greater purpose?

I don't know. I can't answer that. All I can say is I'd rather connect to people through my ideas for once, instead of having to listen to lectures and read articles and retweet tweets pertaining to the mastery of nuance of the latest social media fad. (I maintain Twitter itself will level off and be replaced some year.) I want to at some point not be wheeling and dealing, searching and sliding, researching and networking and scratching backs and learning the latest lingo just to connect with human beings. I'd like to use social media once in a while for the very thing I got into it for in the first place. To make a personal difference in people's lives without feeling like I'm trying to sell them a used car. I'd like to succeed by using social media when appropriate without having to surrender to the notion that it is the new voluntary version of Big Brother.

I'd like to matter with the aid of social media. Not because of it.

But perhaps I am just TOO XYZ for that too.