Alex Payne over at Open The Dialogue sets out three very good reasons why Facebook didn’t invade our privacy; We already let Facebook in:
- We confuse the need for control with the right to privacy. As it says in the definition we have the right to stay private. However this flies in the face of everything that we love about social networks. How can we demand privacy when most people will constantly tell the world what they had for dinner? A social network is built by openness. . .
- We fear what we don’t understand. I will be the first one to admit that I’m not sure how my data is being handled by Facebook within the new system. Of course I also don’t know how (don’t be evil) Google stores my recent searches, how much of my email is being scanned for advertising keywords or even how many times my FourSquare check-ins are being studied for accuracy. . .
- We forget that at its core, Facebook is a business. Facebook has quickly become a communication portal that over 400 million people use across the world. While it’d be nice for Facebook to operate as an non-profit (I think having it be publicly funded would cause more issues), it’s just not going to happen. . .
Alex is absolutely right. When we decide to engage in the open world of social media we have to accept that we are letting loose some of our information, and really understand that it’s not such a bad thing after all.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=54f0d726-87f5-443b-bc3c-3d4d2943a941)
