schmevil: (Default)
This month I've been spending a lot of my free time tweeting about racism and sexism in comics. I've spent the last week and a half arguing with Erik Larsen directly. Twitter is such a time sink for me. I've got access to intelligent and admirable people, as well as deplorable ones. I can spend hours reading up on the unfolding disaster in the Gulf, or talking about DC Comics' treatment of characters of colour. It's incredible for the scope and nature of access it grants and encourages. I mean, I'm talking back and forth with a comics publisher, and sometimes when I follow cool people like Jay Smooth, they follow me back. (HOLY SHIT, HOLY SHIT, FANGASM!)

But I think what I like best about Twitter is how simple a tool it is. Obviously the code is deterministic, insofar as how people are able to talk to each other, access information, etc. But it's downright bare bones, as social networking sites go. I really think that the simplicity of Twitter is what makes it so flexible and organic. Because Twitter is just a 140 character miniblog, with only a few additional organizational functions (direct messages, @replies, hashtags), users are freer to do whatever the hell they want with the service.

Contrast with technocratic Facebookialand, where users have less and less control over what information they share, and how it's shared. Where, it seems to me, Facebook is working hard to shape your experience as a user, so as best to monetize it. Of course this could all be my base hatred of Facebook as an organization, and my affection for Twitter showing. idek

***

Anyway, have a poem:

schmevil: (daily planet)
Facebook, MySpace Confront Privacy Loophole (Wall Street Journal)

Facebook, MySpace and several other social-networking sites have been sending data to advertising companies that could be used to find consumers' names and other personal details, despite promises they don't share such information without consent.

The practice, which most of the companies defended, sent user names or ID numbers tied to personal profiles being viewed when users clicked on ads. After questions were raised by The Wall Street Journal, Facebook and MySpace moved to make changes. By Thursday morning Facebook had rewritten some of the offending computer code.

Advertising companies were given information that could be used to look up individual profiles, which, depending on the site and the information a user has made public, include such things as a person's real name, age, hometown and occupation.

...

In addition to Facebook and MySpace, LiveJournal, Hi5, Xanga and Digg also sent advertising companies the user name or ID number of the page being visited. (MySpace is owned by News Corp., which also owns The Wall Street Journal.) Twitter also was found to pass Web addresses including user names of a profile being visited on Twitter.com.


Read More.
schmevil: (drugs)
Oh man, I have no idea why I'm so tired.

Today I will actually catch up on comments, oh yes. I've only got about 20 left and most of them are comments in serious discussions that are due replies. I don't like to reply while incredibly tired (as opposed to *so* tired, as I am now), because I end up spewing a metric tonne of bullcacky and silliness. So my non-work agenda for the day is: comments, SD/NSD mod business, and the much belated Die Hard post. After tonight's SPN episode, I might be able to break out of the amber that's encased the writing portion of my brain, and work on the fic backlog too. It'll be nice to be all caught up. [PS. Kiji, don't forget to send me that cuddle meme prompt!]

For those of you who are tired of all the srs bzns posts, I have to disappoint you further. I'm working on a post about abusive relationships and sexual coercion that is most definitely going to be a downer. More because there are some things I need to get out, than because I need my flist to read them. As with the bullying post, I've wanted to do it for a long time, starting, stopping and deleting over and over, but I think I'll actually have the fortitude to get through it this time.

What else is in the queue... more about Facebook. I know, I know, but I want to advance the argument that those who use FB as their primary point of internet contact, and only use it to interact with existing friends, are missing out on the best part of the internet - which is meeting and chatting with people from all over the world. You're shutting the door on a whole house full of possibilities. Dunno. Probably more on that.
schmevil: (daily planet)
Last night I talked about reporting Punch A Slut Week on Facebook. Sometime during the night, Facebook too the event down. \o/


Also, I can't recall if I linked to this article. Facebook’s Gone Rogue; It’s Time for an Open Alternative

Facebook has gone rogue, drunk on founder Mark Zuckerberg’s dreams of world domination. It’s time the rest of the web ecosystem recognizes this and works to replace it with something open and distributed.

Facebook used to be a place to share photos and thoughts with friends and family and maybe play a few stupid games that let you pretend you were a mafia don or a homesteader. It became a very useful way to connect with your friends, long-lost friends and family members. Even if you didn’t really want to keep up with them.

Soon everybody — including your uncle Louie and that guy you hated from your last job — had a profile.

And Facebook realized it owned the network.

Then Facebook decided to turn “your” profile page into your identity online — figuring, rightly, that there’s money and power in being the place where people define themselves. But to do that, the folks at Facebook had to make sure that the information you give it was public.


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schmevil: (feminazi)
TeeJay Szabo is hosting National Punch A Slut In the Face Week.

If you have an account on Facebook, please report this event as a violation of FB's terms of service ("a direct call to violence"). It advocates violence against women and slut shaming - for lulz.
schmevil: (philosoraptor)
1. Atheists and charity. My working thesis is that the reason atheists donate less to charity on average than do church-going believers, is that they aren't part of charitable communities. Churches and temples regularly engage in fundraising and charitable works. Where does the atheist go for the same kind of in-built charitable community? We have to find or build that community, whereas believers are very often born into one, or can joining a large and thriving charitable community.

That atheists care less about their fellow humans is a proposition I'm going to reject outright. I give you: Bill and Melinda Gates, Warren Buffet, and even our borderline evangelist anti-theists, Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens.


2. National security, democracy, and good government. I'm of the opinion that substantive democracy requires a limited definition of national security. Fewer 'vital national interests', so governments have fewer excuses for foreign adventures. As much transparency as possible, so that the blanket of national security can't be used to hide things that must not be hidden, such as military, intelligence and governmental misconduct. A clear separation between national security and governmental integrity, ie. what hurts the party in power, does not necessarily hurt the country; or, the Prime Minister is not Canada.

The Afghan detainee scandal makes it clear: you can't have good government when the party in power is throwing around the excuse of national security. 'National security' is akin to 'terrorism' in its clarity, and in it's ability to inspire knee-jerk patriotism and panic. When a governing party starts to frame things with the rubric of national security, when they try to block the efforts of HM's Loyal Opposition, with that old boogie man, you know you're in trouble. Let's all be thankful we have such an awesome Speaker. Hail!

Anyway, I'm by no means a pacifist, but I'm deeply suspicious of security-creep. Because ultimately, national security is an excuse to go to war, to engage in all kinds of governmental tomfoolery and misconduct, it absolutely must not be allowed to expand without the input of the people. It's too important to leave up to the politicians!


3. Kids these days, and their lack of understanding of the workings of the internet. It's kind of a meme right now that Facebook will soon surpass Google, as an entry point to the internet. Facebook is already well on its way to kicking Google's ass in the 'exploiting your users for advertising dollars' department. Will Facebook soon become the world's homepage?

Firstly, I'm kind of doubtful that Facebook is going to be around for the long haul. Maybe it's reached a kind of critical mass of membership, and for that reason alone will be able to keep on trucking through the arrival of the next big thing. Maybe not. But I don't think that Facebook offers enough, is useful enough to stay in the top spot forever.

Facebook is a portal. It shapes your internet experience. Google, on the other hand, is a search tool that let's you go wherever you like. There aren't any alerts warning you that you're about to leave Google (oh noes!). There aren't the constant reminders that Jane likes Tokyo Hotel, and David would like to be friends. When Facebook is your portal to the internet, you're not really on the internet in a meaningful way. You're in the magical land of Facebookia, where everything is pre-formatted, works the same way, and connects back to your profile. If Facebook is your portal to the internet, and has always been your portal to the internet, then... do you actually know how to use the goddamn internet? Do you know what the hell it is? Do you know how to keep you and your information safe?

My experience with young teenagers says: sometimes yes, but oftentimes no. I spend a lot of time advising my ducklings on matters of internet-y import, and that just seems counterintuitive, doesn't in? They're supposed to be the internet generation!

Of course, it could just be my Facebook hate-on talking, but-- The longer a technology is around, and the more commonplace it becomes, the more users take it for granted, and the less they know about it, and how to fix it. Take cars, for example. Most people can drive. Few people know what a fanbelt looks like, much less its significance. The thing about all-encompassing portals like Facebook, is that they don't let you fiddle around, see the source code, build things yourself, or just talk about how things are built. Have we reached the drive-only internet generation?

Kids these days, get off my lawn! *grouse grouse*
schmevil: (daily planet)
The EFF has put together a timeline of FB's privacy policies:

Facebook Privacy Policy circa 2005:

No personal information that you submit to Thefacebook will be available to any user of the Web Site who does not belong to at least one of the groups specified by you in your privacy settings.

Facebook Privacy Policy circa 2006:

We understand you may not want everyone in the world to have the information you share on Facebook; that is why we give you control of your information. Our default privacy settings limit the information displayed in your profile to your school, your specified local area, and other reasonable community limitations that we tell you about.

Facebook Privacy Policy circa 2007:

Profile information you submit to Facebook will be available to users of Facebook who belong to at least one of the networks you allow to access the information through your privacy settings (e.g., school, geography, friends of friends). Your name, school name, and profile picture thumbnail will be available in search results across the Facebook network unless you alter your privacy settings.

Facebook Privacy Policy circa November 2009:

Facebook is designed to make it easy for you to share your information with anyone you want. You decide how much information you feel comfortable sharing on Facebook and you control how it is distributed through your privacy settings. You should review the default privacy settings and change them if necessary to reflect your preferences. You should also consider your settings whenever you share information. ...

Information set to "everyone" is publicly available information, may be accessed by everyone on the Internet (including people not logged into Facebook), is subject to indexing by third party search engines, may be associated with you outside of Facebook (such as when you visit other sites on the internet), and may be imported and exported by us and others without privacy limitations. The default privacy setting for certain types of information you post on Facebook is set to "everyone." You can review and change the default settings in your privacy settings.

Facebook Privacy Policy circa December 2009:

Certain categories of information such as your name, profile photo, list of friends and pages you are a fan of, gender, geographic region, and networks you belong to are considered publicly available to everyone, including Facebook-enhanced applications, and therefore do not have privacy settings. You can, however, limit the ability of others to find this information through search using your search privacy settings.

Current Facebook Privacy Policy, as of April 2010:

When you connect with an application or website it will have access to General Information about you. The term General Information includes your and your friends' names, profile pictures, gender, user IDs, connections, and any content shared using the Everyone privacy setting. ... The default privacy setting for certain types of information you post on Facebook is set to "everyone." ... Because it takes two to connect, your privacy settings only control who can see the connection on your profile page. If you are uncomfortable with the connection being publicly available, you should consider removing (or not making) the connection.


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