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Showing posts from June, 2010

My Concerns about Facebook Have Nothing to do with Privacy

My concerns about Facebook have little to do with privacy. I can see how some people would be put off by Facebook's callous attitude about their privacy, but I can't count myself amongst their number. I live pretty publicly anyway. The recent kerfluffle has been almost entirely about privacy settings, but that's not where I fear Facebook. Instead, I'm afraid of the Like API announced at F8 . I'm afraid of the walled garden creeping up around me. I'm afraid that I'll wake up one morning and someone will have taken my gloriously free Internet, and turned it into an AOL chatroom, unlinkable, unsearchable, unreachable by any means except the approved portal of Facebook. I'm done with these gatekeepers like Zuckerberg (and Steve Jobs and Rupert Murdoch are right behind him)--each of them pursuing the dream of controlling what we consume. I don't care that my browsing habits aren't private, I care that they aren't public in an open and sear