Thursday, September 14, 2006

Facebook privacy trainwreck

Danah Boyd discusses the user-revolt on the social-networking site Facebook after they introduced software that displays every action you take to all your friends.

Not surprisingly, people were horrified -- even though everything they did was, in a sense, public, the sense of invasion of privacy was huge.

As Danah points out, privacy is often about the ick-factor -- that sense that, even though you haven't done anything wrong, you don't want people knowing everything you do.

Privacy [...] is about the sense of vulnerability that an individual experiences. When people feel exposed or invaded, there's a privacy issue.

Even if you don't use social network software like LiveJournal, Facebook or similar, you should read her post.

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