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Tremonius
12/10/09

In reply to Facebook Wants to Steal Your Friends
All this talk about privacy reminds me of the revolution. Back in the sixties and shortly thereafter, plenty of part-time JC stoonts were against whatever was, and they met in groups over coffee at the Student Union and said so. They also talked about how their phones were all tapped and FBI agents were peeking at them through subterranean curtains every minute of the day.

The Freedom of Information Act allowed them years after to seek out their various CIA dossiers, which were universally nonexistant, for what interest had the gumint in duds who only sat around talking? The revvies could not understand why come it was the Karl Marx of Chaney County had failed to arouse the slightest attention.

A greater fear than being watched is being ignored.
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irv
12/15/09

@Tremonius: Tapping phones in the 1960s was very limited in scale by the technical limitations: real people would have to actually listen-in. However, data-mining information on the Internet is comparably limitless, especially when the data are helpfully indexed by your name and who you associate with. It was easier to be revolutionary in 1960's American than it is to be one now in Iran, for example. For Americans' purposes, people might not want to be assessed by their associations by future potential employers or whomever.
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Tremonius
12/15/09

@irv: Yes, and it was almost like believing in Santa to think the gumint would spend the time and effort it took to tap the phone of an ordinary revvie from anywhere. It's either not understanding the resources required, or vastly over-rating one's standing in the counterculture, and both foibles were quite prevalent.
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wertherian
12/10/09

In reply to Facebook Wants to Steal Your Friends
Uh... do you know what a social network IS? Facebook has ALWAYS allowed people to see who your friends are. How do you think it says how many mutual friends you have with someone when you first look them up? This is no change in policy, it's a clarification. May as well get mad at Myspace, Friendster, and every other freakin' social network out there.
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wertherian
12/10/09

@wertherian: ZOMG actually even GAWKER shows this information.

[valleywag.gawker.com]
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MissNormaDesmond
12/10/09

@wertherian: Are you really unobservant enough not to get the difference between showing friends on an anonymized system and on one with people's names, faces, and contact information?
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cassandra
12/10/09

@wertherian: Do you know ANYTHING at all? You could protect your friend list before - it was difficult, but possible. Now you can't.
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Dominant Glee Club
12/10/09

In reply to Facebook Wants to Steal Your Friends
Yes, it is quite nefarious that you have to change your privacy settings now that the old privacy settings have been widened and don't jive with the new ones. God help those of us who had to stir our bodies forward in our seats to reset the settings.
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MissNormaDesmond
12/10/09

@Dominant Glee Club: The point seems to be that there's a level of anonymity that was previously available that no longer is, except by losing a large part of the value of having a profile on a social network.
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Tremonius
12/10/09

@MissNormaDesmond: Right. I terminated my account and cut that cable running to my iMac, and now I'm in splendid isolation! Even the ACLU couldn't find a leak in that privacy policy.
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Tremonius
12/10/09

@Dominant Glee Club: I used to not understand how it was some program positioned behind a hit teevee show had a leg up on the rest of the time slot on other networks. Back when there were no remotes, Ed Sullivan and Uncle Walter left a shadow like drafting behind a truck on the freeway. It was because nobody wanted to get up and hike to the knob and see what else was on. Now folks is fatter and even with the remote, it's too much effort.
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MissNormaDesmond
12/10/09

@Tremonius: Well, that's one solution. Another one, for people who find the site valuable and enjoy using it, would be to see if they can get the policy changed. You seem to feel that yours is the superior solution, but I'm not quite sure why.
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Tremonius
12/10/09

@MissNormaDesmond: This is beginning to read like a serious discussion of Facebook, which I had not thought possible. I'm still not convinced.
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MissNormaDesmond
12/10/09

@Tremonius: I've reconnected with people I adore through Facebook, and I can interact with them in small but pleasing ways with an ease I don't think I could replicate in any other way. They're present in my life in a way they hadn't been for years, and I enjoy it immensely. Sure, there's a lot that's laughable about it, but it would sadden me to give that contact up.
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Tremonius
12/10/09

@MissNormaDesmond: I hear that. Once someone was condemning the artificial, the technical, the remote electronical connection. The premium in InterPersonal Communication was face to face. And so in place of maybe a discussion of Ulysses or a description of how The Thirds connect Neal Cassady with Oedipus and Gertrude Stein, we have, so, how ya doin'? Fine, you? Been cold lately. Yep.
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MissNormaDesmond
12/10/09

@Tremonius: I would love to be face-to-face with these people. If that person wants to pay my travel expenses, I'll be happy to oblige their standards of communication. In the meantime, I'll take what I can get -- and afford.
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Dominant Glee Club
12/10/09

@AllConcerned: It doesn't matter. The level of privacy is still there. It's just, as usual, up to people who give enough of a shit to keep their information private. Let us all shed a single tear for the dumb and the oblivious, who were off to such a grand start in this world already.
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MissNormaDesmond promoted this comment Dominant Glee Club was starred

MissNormaDesmond
12/10/09

@Dominant Glee Club: If you're saying that you have to be dumb and oblivious not to be good at navigating the ins and outs of the FB privacy permissions, I can't really agree with you. It's a skill set that comes relatively easily to people who have experience in using social networking sites, and much less so to newbies -- which we all were at one time. Unless I'm mistaken, of course, and you were born knowing how these things work, in which case, my apologies.
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Dominant Glee Club
12/11/09

@MissNormaDesmond: If you're putting your own information on the internet without figuring out what's done with it or how to control it, yes, you are dumb and oblivious.
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Tremonius
12/11/09

@MissNormaDesmond: It was a tacit rule of dumb on my block growing up, and forever, that you never ever said or did anything for the first time. Any act or expression or even notion which had not been worn dry by ancestors was to be avoided like mushroom in the wild. There's a name for that, of course. Conservative.
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Tremonius
12/11/09

@Dominant Glee Club: I have to say, do you apply these same reading skills to the privacy rules in Facebook?

There are three hundred and fifty million FB users. That's more than the population of the US, and you can bet plenty of Americans are invested, which means a very solid contingent of the most bloated nest of pitiful whiners on the planet. And so the MSM has a pick of complaints from twenty FB friends or satisfaction from millions, and guess where they go.

Rule: Every goodbye ain't gone, and every grievance don't mean grief. I hope the worst trouble any of us ever have is protecting our precious privacy on Facebook.

Hear about the guy who wanted to sue because he was ripped off in Mob Wars?
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j_p_heffernan
12/11/09

@Tremonius: So, Facebook even has its own trolls/employees out on the lines, going all Cheney-like on the folks that are being violated . . . kind of like the old 'you shouldn't be afraid of the strip search - unless you have something to hide - do you, DO YOU!).
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MissNormaDesmond
12/11/09

@Dominant Glee Club: The next time you need help with something you don't quite understand but want to use, I hope the person you seek it from doesn't have your attitude.
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Dominant Glee Club
12/11/09

@MissNormaDesmond: I seek my help from the endless informational font of the internet, which is what gave me my attitude in the first place. Usual Vault rules apply: touch not, lest ye be touched.
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MissNormaDesmond
12/11/09

@Dominant Glee Club: Hmm, well, perhaps I have insufficient faith in the Internets, but somehow I suspect there are things even it can't teach you. (I mean "you" in the sense of "one", in case that's not clear.)
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Dominant Glee Club
12/12/09

@MissNormaDesmond: Because I am not a lazy Facebook reader, I picked up what you were putting down.
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ronaldmcmcmc
12/10/09

In reply to Facebook Wants to Steal Your Friends
It's a real shame that you're not allowed to delete your profile and that you're forced to keep updating Facebook.

Oh wait.

It's Facebook's own site. They can do what they want. Shut your profile down if you have beef with them.
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MissNormaDesmond
12/10/09

@ronaldmcmcmc: What is this with the lackey mentality? Facebook isn't providing a charity -- it's an interaction in which they provide the site, and the members provide content, the attraction of other members, and eyeballs for them to sell to advertisers. They need members as much as members need them, and members have every right to respond when changes are made that affect the value of the site for them.
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ronaldmcmcmc
12/10/09

@MissNormaDesmond: I agree with all that. Just keep in mind though that members can "respond" and voice their displeasure as much as they want, but unless FB sees members leaving the site in droves because of a change, they won't give a shit. Don't let the heartfelt letters from the founder fool ya. It's purely about retaining existing users and growing for them.
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MissNormaDesmond
12/10/09

@ronaldmcmcmc: Site usage can go down without members leaving, which still gets them in the pageviews. Maybe the thing is to stage a gray-out; if a significantly large number of members went along with a plan to stay off Facebook one day a week, say Wednesday, that might get them to listen without people's having to cancel their accounts.

On the other hand, is there anything more pathetic than Facebook activism? I'm not sure.
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ronaldmcmcmc
12/10/09

@MissNormaDesmond: "Gray-out"...never heard that one before. Works though. Sure, makes sense, although it's really a way for users to express their displeasure without full-on deleting profiles. It's like a half-protest.

Answer: no, nothing more pathetic. Myspace activism maybe?
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unclevanya
12/10/09

In reply to Facebook Wants to Steal Your Friends
Holy crap, they've also made changing your multi-layered privacy settings a confusing marathon. I want that half-hour back I just spent double-checking everything, and I know there's still options I missed...
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Tremonius
12/10/09

@unclevanya: Yeah, like ... if you want to set up your new Privacy Settings to be For Reals, you have to find your name on the list and Opt In. That list is three hundred and fifty million long, and not alphabetical.
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Swifter
12/10/09

In reply to Facebook Wants to Steal Your Friends
I limited Facebook's ability to share this information by disabling my account permanently.
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lionel-mandrake
12/10/09

@Swifter: If I didn't need it to stay in touch with certain people I would have ditched out long ago.
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cpjones
12/10/09

@Swifter: But how will you be able to play Farmville, Scrabble, and Mafia Wars now?
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filthy tongue
12/10/09

@Swifter: A-men. No amount of keeping in touch was worth the paranoia Facebook engendered in me. The internets is for anonymity, damn it!
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Swifter
12/10/09

@cpjones: Somehow, I'll manage.
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Wenceslaus
12/10/09

@Swifter: It's only part that I can't restrict others from finding my name and photo - although I'm not cool with that being available to anyone on the internet, it'd be relatively hard to find. It's that I can't prevent my friends from making their friends available to anyone who can see their profile, meaning anyone who can see my friends' profiles can see me, including people who frankly don't need to know where I live or what I look like now.
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Swifter
12/10/09

@Wenceslaus: Just disable your account and be done with it, for heaven's sake!
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cassandra
12/10/09

@Wenceslaus: @Swifter: Facebook has a "temporarily deactivate account" function. Very useful.
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Wenceslaus
12/10/09

@Swifter: I actually already deleted it permanently.
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sfBirdie
12/10/09

In reply to Facebook Wants to Steal Your Friends
Um, Mike Byhoff's mustache? Really?
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raincoaster
12/10/09

In reply to Facebook Wants to Steal Your Friends
I am relatively sure this is in contravention of Canada's aggressive privacy protection laws, and Facebook is gonna hafta suck back, HARD.
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Glanton
12/10/09

In reply to Facebook Wants to Steal Your Friends
Take your fucking ball and go home, already.
Unsurprisingly, the worst thing about Facebook is how much users of Facebook whine about Facebook. Every change, every interface update, every announcement from the company gets greeted by these shrill jeremiads. Go personalize an advertisement at MySpace if you ain't dig it any more.
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MissNormaDesmond
12/10/09

@Glanton: Oh, but then you'd miss your chance to feel all superior as you tell everyone else to clam up. We're just trying to help you out.
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VioletViolet
12/10/09

@Glanton: As a Facebook user, I never had a problem with its changes before, but now I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. For all of its faults, it has been a good way to stay connected to people whom I haven't talked to in a while or who live far away. My cousins are Facebook friends with my cousins from the other side of my family, and it actually gives us all something to bond over at family gatherings. Yeah, I could disable my account, but I'd be losing a lot, too.

That said, the whole reason I joined it instead of MySpace is because at the time, it was much more private. I shouldn't have to choose between sharing information with the people I want to share with and letting anyone see it.
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VioletViolet
12/10/09

@MissNormaDesmond: Exactly.
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Rozelle’s Bagman
12/10/09

In reply to Facebook Wants to Steal Your Friends
Great, so all my haterz will see I'm friendless
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Tremonius
12/10/09

@Rozelle’s Bagman: I was just gonna complain to ol' Mark over there about that. There should be an option to buy about a hundred faux-friends when you log on, with celebrities going for a premium.

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Tremonius
12/10/09

[www.flickr.com]
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alltaken
12/10/09

In reply to Facebook Wants to Steal Your Friends
You think that's bad, the privacy settings say this:

When you visit a Facebook-enhanced application or website, it may access any information you have made visible to Everyone (Edit Profile Privacy) as well as your publicly available information. This includes your Name, Profile Picture, Gender, Current City, Networks, Friend List, and Pages. The application will request your permission to access any additional information it needs.

Meaning, any web site that pays a fee to Facebook will be able to grab your name, picture, friends etc. Even if you don't have Facebook open.
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cassandra
12/10/09

@alltaken: Why would having Facebook "open" matter? The database doesn't come to life only when log in.
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alltaken
12/10/09

@cassandra: You're right, it just seems particularly nefarious (or at least contrary to people's expectations) that Facebook is giving out your info for things you do completely outside its site.

Like, for example, I go to a medical website to search for information about some personal medical issue that I don't want anyone to learn about, since I have a Facebook account the website can get my name and picture. That website decides to sell a list of its visitors to a drug company who can now start sending infoemation on the types of drugs I was researching to my home.
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hilikusopus
12/10/09

In reply to Facebook Wants to Steal Your Friends
"The social network has formally nationalized your friends list, like some Cuban sugar plantation...."
[insert Mafia Wars reference, here]
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anonymousryan
12/10/09

In reply to Facebook Wants to Steal Your Friends
Quick! Someone see if the lesbo teachers in Brooklyn are facebook friends!!
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Doree Shafrir
12/10/09

In reply to Facebook Wants to Steal Your Friends
I'm a fan of Howard Kurtz? How can I blame Mark Zuckerberg for this, too?
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EleanorRigby
12/10/09

In reply to Our Trains Are Very Delicate Okay?
Don't even think about spitting your gum out in the tracks...
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