Facebook is the face of social networking, no pun intended. Now it appears it is trying to turn the industry into an even more dangerous business.
I joined RantRave earlier this year after a buddy of mine showed me a rant of his. Despite the fact I thought this site was cool enough to join, I almost completely forgot about it and I am just now writing my first rant. So why did I think RantRave could fulfill this need to share my opinion, yet almost immediately forget about even signing up?
It's quite obvious that Facebook was already a great way to let people know what I think. I usually wrote a status every week or two, and I felt a need to share an opinion less often than that. Even though I had to keep my posts short due to the increasingly shrinking attention span of most Facebookers, I could get immediate feedback from my family, friends, and acquaintances through comments and "likes". Facebook did and continues to adequately serve this purpose.
However, Facebook is now trying too hard to update the features of its site. I am not talking about the aesthetic changes done to the "News Feed", as it appears to be just as annoying as the previous design. What is bugging me is this live feed thing that appears on the home page, to the right of the News Feed. This thing literally tells me EVERYTHING on Facebook that my 345 "friends" are doing. It includes status updates, photos, videos, my friends becoming friends with people I will never hear of again, anything that my friends like and/or comment on, and other stuff. This is information that I do not really care to know, but also information that I do not need others to know.
I do not do too many of the things that would end up there, but it is concerning that this is the direction that Facebook is going. The idea of privacy is quickly disappearing in our society, at least on the Internet. Unfortunately, the Internet is where people have a tendency to share sensitive things, such as what their homes and kids look like. It is okay though, since they are only being shared with friends. Right?
That is already false. It has been false since the beginning. According to Facebook, I have 345 friends. According to me, I do not have 345 friends. Knowing this, there is nothing I have put on Facebook that I would hate to see on a big screen in Times Square. I have seen some unflattering photos of people that I only know because I had about two classes with them in high school. This ranges from people being passed out to some embarrassing nip-slips. I feel like if I, in person, ask a woman I am only acquainted with to show me a picture of herself with her nipple hanging out, I would probably be rejected and called a pervert. But it is right there on Facebook, where the entire world can see. Privacy my [certain body cavity]!
I have more bad news too: it is only going to get worse.
Facebook announced yesterday (Sept. 22, 2011) that it will introduce "real-time" applications within the coming weeks. These rather intruding programs will be able to track such things like which web sites you are visiting, what music you are listening to on the Internet, the videos you are viewing on YouTube and Hulu, and report them to all of your "friends". This means a lot of people will have to be careful on what they use the Internet for. This is just an assumption, but I bet most people who have a fondness for Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up" do not want the world to know that fact.
In the end, my question is where is the line for Facebook? Despite the web site's lengthy string of unpopular changes, its membership continues to grow, having hit 750 million members this past summer. I wonder if the developers of Facebook make bets on how bad it can make the web site and continue to see an increasing growth rate. The process of the aesthetic changes, which I find to be almost scientific law, goes as such: people complain about the new changes, get used to the new changes, and respond to even newer changes by demanding the previous set up back, even though they hated it to begin with. This is the Circle of Facebook.
The more important question is where is the privacy line for Facebook? Does it even exist? The Circle of Facebook shows that the web site's members will, for the most part, keep their accounts active and allow Facebook to continue to grow, despite how unsatisfied they are with the changing product. What will finally make people angry enough at Facebook to say "Go [certain verb] yourselves!"? Will it one day infiltrate members' web cams and have a continuous live stream come from their laptops? At this rate, who knows?
I project that one day, relatively soon, I will come back to RantRave and tell you that the only people who should be on Facebook are those who will invite just about anybody into their homes. It is not that bad, yet, but those who wish to have a half-decent amount of privacy should deactivate soon. The Internet is your window to the world. Facebook is world's window to your life.