fudged

Lists of titles (old Digg, reddit, HN) is a great way to browse links.

You'll have plenty of more ideas! Work on your programming skills and you'll be able to cash in one day. Good luck

Deserts tend to be deserted. "The only water seller" is redundant.

Again, brilliant but evil.

But first, in regards to the Facebook of yesterday, you will find many resources that describe how few people actually change their privacy settings or even understand them. This has improved over time, but I know plenty of intelligent people who don't understand many of the settings that have been introduced over the years. The product that they signed up for isn't the same as it is today.

In regards to the reduced control over your own privacy, it's important to note that your friends can volunteer information about you indirectly by using "smart lists". You can tell facebook what city someone is in, what university, whether they are in your family, or if they are a close friend. You can add geographic information to other peoples' photos. Also, because of the different levels of update subscriptions, Facebook has made it favorable for people to use the "Life Stories" feature of their profiles/timeslines because they don't know which friends have unsubscribed from seeing "all updates" ("most important" updates most likely implies Life Stories).

Also, certain features still have no privacy. Answers to all Facebook Questions are public on your profile. Even as intimate with the privacy settings that I am, I didn't know this! So you either have to not use the feature (which would require knowing about the privacy setting before using it), or deleting these answers after making them.

Edit: I forgot to mention that so many people make public posts on Facebook, that you can't comment on any of those without your comments also being public. Most people don't care. So the network is becoming more public, with less opportunity to stay private. And remember that when you comment on those public posts, your comment is shown in the ticker and newsfeeds of your friends (which, in my opinion, is a violation of my privacy. Just because I comment on something doesn't mean I want it notified to my friends). These two actions of public posts have no privacy options... the only thing you can do is avoid commenting on public posts.

I believe the contrary is true. Facebook is successful because Zuckerberg et al understand social ties to the point where they have locked people into their system, got them to interact more, provide all their private information, and then profit off them by serving them all intrusive advertising.

I don't think it would be at all possible if they didn't understand social relationships. They know them intimately enough to skew our idea of privacy and social communication to the point of profit.

I say kudos to them for their brilliance. But I also think they are one of the most evil corporations in existence.

I'm aware of parents who have 6 year olds and 10 year olds using Facebook so that they have access to games and family. The Facebook UI/UX does do nasty tricks to coerce people into providing more information than they prefer.

Did you know that other users can volunteer your information? Someone else can register themselves as your family member, close friend, or classmate at a specific institution, without your consent. They can volunteer your location (city) as well. This was not possible in the past, before the "smart lists" feature. They're literally getting people to fill in the information of friends so that they can be targeted ads even if they chose not to provide that information to facebook. I don't think many people know this.

I think that Facebook is relatively oppressive and authoritarian in the context of online services and social software in general. Extending the analogy to another context (death camps?) is... well, I don't know how to describe the irrelevance.

I don't think that pot is related to this in any way.

It's also a second meeting place. I'll meet someone once or a few times IRL, share an interest or a mutual friend, and connect with them on Facebook. Their profile helps me discover more about them (and vice-versa), and having their updates mixed in with the updates of my other friends lets me learn more about them over time and interact with them if something interesting or important comes up.

To many people, the idea of having nearly one thousand "friends" is baffling and stupid. Yes, it breaks the traditional model of what a friendship actually means, but your interaction in the system enforces the idea of who really matters to you. Because it's a communication platform, you tend to interact the most with the people you care most about.

Has Facebook warped my perspective of privacy? Yes. But I have experienced a lot of value from it, in terms of experiences and interactions that I wouldn't have had if I didn't put out that information about me or provided a medium to interact with 'my life story'.

The default privacy settings are horrifying. But as an individual, there is enough customization so that I can target my content at specific groups of people.

And subconsciously, you're removing value from other people's valued medium/experience. By not having account, you must have some opposition to something that they have, use, and like; I think it might be subconsciously insulting and snobby to many people. To most people, the service holds unquestionable value.

(These generalizations may or may not be true... merely speculation/extrapolation from my own experiences)

Google had a huge shot at making an alternative, and although the G+ community is vibrant, the product has failed to reach the potential that it had. And there are many privacy concerns with that platform as well, because every massive social network needs revenue.

It's good that we have him around to consider the utopian extremist viewpoint, even if it's rarely the favorable option. We aren't all made of money... the benefits outweigh the risks for most services where we pay with our ad-viewing, closed platforms, and information gathering. People can volunteer time and effort into building free systems, but nobody is going to donate data centers and storage space. I think there are limitations to the free mentality for widely adopted services.

Is this a reference to consultant_barbie on reddit, or is this meme more widespread?