Monday, April 23, 2007

Facebook : Big brother?

Does anyone else have any concers about Facebook? I've immersed myself in it like everyone else, filling in all the sections and linking to all my friends. Last night, however, I had this vision of Mr Facebook sitting in a big swivel-chair stroking his furry white cat, and on the table in front of him was a huge spider-diagram inter-linking all of us - where we met, what our hobbies are, who our partners are, what our jobs are, the books we read, the music we listen to, our e-mail addresses, pictures of us, etc.

This information is boring and useless on its own, but link it all together and you could map out a whole society on your desk.

What if Mr Facebook gets a call from the FBI ordering him to relinquish information for the 'greater good'? What if your mortgage/insurance company gets access to see who your friends are and what kind of lifestyle you lead? What if someone hacks in and steals the information? Would your boss be interested to know what you do in your spare time? At the very least expect to be bombarded with e-mails which 'may be of interest'.


The more I type the deeper this could go. Better stop now and watch the snooker on TV instead.

7 comments:

Calavera said...

Tell me about it. Once a House Officer said to me, "Oh you're the girl who went on holiday with X and Y, aren't you?"

I was like, "Um.. yeah... how did you know??"

And he was like, "I saw your holiday pics online on Facebook!"

I was like, ?????????????????????

(That was before I joined facebook... at least now I'm more in the loop...)

Still, though, it's really disturbing to know how much a random could find out about me on that confounded site. I've set my privacy settings on to the highest... we shall see how it goes.

Dazed And Confused said...

they're COMING to GET YOU mate

THEY'RE OUTSIDE RIGHT NOW!

but to be realistic, if anyone "high" up actually gives a shit about the pondlife we spend our lives hanging out with, i'd be very surprised.

there was this thing in the paper (the ever informative London Lite) which said that City firms were looking up prospective job seekers on myspace, etc to see what they get up to in their personal life. as if MMC alone isn't enough to screw up your employment chances.

not sure about this likes to get caned ++ though...

see ya!

Kate Mc said...

Ahhhh, crackbook.

Weirdly enough we do use it at our institution to keep tabs on students. It's both creepy and a fact of life these days.

They try and plan a party, we know. They make racist/hate comments on there, we know.

Having said that, what really gets me is all the people from high school that are adding me that I rarely talked to then and that seem to think we're "friends" now.

I go by Kate M on facebook should you care to expand your network. :)

Anonymous said...

I heard about big city firms using facebook too. But if they only want to emply drones with no social lives then I wouldn't want to work there anyway.

SC

Dr. Deb said...

I am TOTALLY clueless about the Facebook thing. Once the semester is over and my teaching is done, I'll dive in and see what all the hot fuss is about. Sounds a bit scary though....

JM said...

I was thinking of joining facebook. But I'm not so sure.

Calavera said...

angel jr - DONT. It will waste your time and suck you in.... evil thing...