How Facebook has changed our idea of 'too much information'
The other day on the Internet, one man's Facebook circle received a public service announcement of sorts: This goes out to any girl that ive ever been with. I got tested today for Herpes and i came out positive.
Privacy just isn't what it used to be.
With Facebook at the forefront, social networking companies with business models hungry for personal data and a youthful generation raised on the Internet seem to be pulling the 21st century toward a more "transparent" culture, in the approving words of Mark Zuckerberg, the social networking giant's 26-year-old founder. Facebook's stated mission: "Giving people the power to share and make the world more open and connected." In other words, letting more people know more about each other.
This comes as long-standing social mores and sensibilities are being shaken by the convergence of Silicon Valley technologies. Besides Facebook, which is based in Palo Alto, sites such as Twitter and YouTube are encouraging hundreds of millions of people to share information and images. Gadgets developed here, from the PC to the iPad, have made it simple for users to create, communicate and access that vast amount of digital data. And Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and others have made it easier to find all of that information.
"Facebook has indeed changed the nature of privacy on the Internet, in that it actually encourages people to make maximum disclosure of their personal information without regard for the possible consequences," said Robert Ellis Smith, publisher of Privacy Journal, a publication that since 1974 has tracked the impact of technology and law on privacy. "Facebook involves lots of young persons who either are not old enough to give meaningful consent or have not had enough life experience to know the consequences."
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