[lbo-talk] your Facebook is their fortune

WD mister.wd at gmail.com
Mon Feb 2 21:02:32 PST 2009


On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 10:38 PM, Jordan Hayes <jmhayes at j-o-r-d-a-n.com> wrote:
>> My wife and I are hiding her pregnancy from my dad's side of the
>> family right now because half of them are on Facebook and she doesn't
>> want the people she works with to know.
>
> And none of them read lbo-talk either, right?

I don't think so... and this unremarkable handle offers a modicum of security from a casual Google search of the archives. I suspect a good portion of the privacy problems with Facebook would go away if they just let people use handles instead of their names. But I think it's the lack of anonymity on Facebook (along with a cleaner interface) that makes it look so legitimate and "safe" in comparison with sites like Myspace, which seems to have a rather damaged -- and undeserved -- reputation as a haven for sexual predators and other lowlifes.

Americans only seem to want privacy in the sense that they'd like to keep their sex toy collection a secret. Genuine privacy and anonymity -- i.e. the establishment of zones where there is no accountability to a government of some sort, state or otherwise -- scares the bejeepers out of us.

-WD



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