danah being brilliant
Let’s take this scenario for a moment. Bob trusts Alice. Bob tells Alice something that he doesn’t want anyone else to know and he tells her not to tell anyone. Alice tells everyone at school because she believes she can gain social stature from it. Bob is hurt and embarrassed. His trust in Alice diminishes. Bob now has two choices. He can break up with Alice, tell the world that Alice is evil, and be perpetually horribly hurt. Or he can take what he learned and manipulate Alice. Next time something bugs him, he’ll tell Alice precisely because he wants everyone to know. And if he wants to guarantee that it’ll spread, he’ll tell her not to tell anyone.
Facebook isn’t in the business of protecting Bob. Facebook is in the business of becoming Alice. Facebook is perfectly content to break Bob’s trust because it knows that Bob can’t totally run away from it. They’re still stuck in the same school together. But, more importantly, Facebook *WANTS* Bob to twist Facebook around and tell it stuff that it’ll spread to everyone. And it’s fine if Bob stops telling Facebook the most intimate stuff, as long as Bob keeps telling Facebook stuff that it can use to gain social stature.
via apophenia: Facebook’s move ain’t about changes in privacy norms.
One Response to “danah being brilliant”
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I wouldn’t say brilliant as much as obvious but then I’ve coped with being a public figure. It really is a ‘if you can’t stand the heat…’ condition. You can either lead a pristine and fairly boring light, or you can develop a skin and toughen up. There is no in-between. Look at the Vanity Fair 6 screaming their heads off and understand they wanted that article but they wanted it their way. Look at Tiger Woods tightly controlled image and realize he set himself up. Now go back 50 years to the heyday of the Rat Pack where randy drunk entertainers made a career out of that image as long as they put butts in seats. Zeitgeist is a piece of the picture. Danah Boyd being upset about a Twitter wall was as deliciously ironic as it gets and the same for the VF6. The very technologies they profit by bit them. People love that sort of stuff schadenfreude being what it is and that’s show biz. If you can’t stand the heat…
So those of us who have been or are entertainers and public figures of a sort know the dangers of social media. The problem is really the dweebs, the noobs, the Mom who believes her daughters must have Facebook pages to be social and don’t know the kids have one for the Mom to see and another for their friends, or that they go to chat and they are spending eight hours a day at work, home or school staring into the tiny screens.
I don’t see some pending danger that wasn’t already there. It’s built into the web by default if you use it enough. Otherwise, Google would still be three people in a bedroom dreaming of glory.
If there is one point in the article that gets my attention it is that she is squarely focused on the geeks and financiers of the Valley and perhaps for the first time beginning to see the arrogance, hubris and disregard that typify a culture that believes Werewolf is a fine simulation for their business. Who knew geeks would become the monsters of an age except possibly their younger siblings?
There is a technology backlash and a geek-come-uppance brewing. I’m not sure what will spark the fire but the tinder is dry and stacking.