Privacy: You Get What You Give
So many seem to grouse lately about online privacy and the notion that none of the companies/social platforms are listening to their users where this is concerned. Facebook, in particular, seems to be an ongoing scapegoat. Whine, whine, whine. The fact is, all of these companies and social platforms are listening. However, the difference is that they are responding to a user base that is not strictly limited to their actual current users.
They are responding to the shift of a social and cultural paradigm.
It has become acceptable on some latent level to remove the filters that once existed between our private and public lives. We volunteer more information about ourselves than we ever have and it’s without prodding or force. The line between what should be public and what should not has become blurred. Why? With so many avenues to choose from, sharing has become autopilot to such extent that people frequently forget to ask, “Is this something that everyone would want to know? Should know?”
Why do we share? Because connecting with something beyond yourself is part of the human experience. Why do we share more? Perhaps it’s that we’re strangely more comfortable with being more open. Perhaps it’s the illusion that anonymity on the Internet still equates to being anonymous. Perhaps it’s the fact that with the ability to connect with more people in more places has made us somehow more lonely behind our computer screens.
Facebook and all of its friends look at it this way: Your willingness to share this information says more about you than what you’re actually sharing. Facebook didn’t force anyone to sign up and to share their entire life story for all the world to see. There are more than enough ways within the platform to hide this information and more. And here’s a genius idea. If you don’t want other people knowing certain things, how about NOT posting that information at all?
Whining and complaining about the privacy policies of these platforms is the equivalent of refusing to take responsibility for your own actions. Fred Wilson talked about this very thing in a short & excellent post a couple of days ago.
If you can spend the time to share the information, you can take the time to protect it.
