I'm back and I have some questions 2004

My mail was bouncing for 48 hours or so. It's working again. Some small amount has re-sent and reached me.

I got a courteous letter from someone at Multiply. We, I think, agree to disagree. They are apparently approaching social networking as more of an application than a community. My expectations of personal voice and moral compass (as opposed to the less emotional counterparts: terms of service and business professionalism) don't quite fit. Think more phonebook, less yenta. Still not for me.

So, I think about my concern for privacy and then I think about the stuff I do: the weblog, Orkut, Flickr, XFN, Amazon wishlist. Is it all just pollyanna-ism thinking that it's safe to share anything in a searchable environment? Can the organizational benefits of meeting other like-minded people (MoveOn.org, MeetUp) to work for political change offset the dangers of centralized information?

And if it doesn't, should people who value freedom and privacy (and all those other nice things the EFF and organizations like that fight for) give up the Web? Or just post everything with disguised authorship? What if MetaGrrrl was a shadowy figure with who "she" talks to and hangs out with couched in the vaguest terms? Never mentioning where exactly "she" lives or what "she" does. With no one ever standing up in person and saying "that's my site". Is that better? If social networking software and Googlebots (empowering the results of that mighty search engine) are inherently a blow against freedom and privacy, what kind of web are we envisioning? What's the goal here, folks? Is the bottom line "give up the tech toys"? Or is there some way to have the fun and prevent corporate and governmental abuse of privacy?

Comments

I'm back and I have some questions

My mail was bouncing for 48 hours or so. It's working again. Some small amount has re-sent and reached me.

I got a courteous letter from someone at Multiply. We, I think, agree to disagree. They are apparently approaching social networking as more of an application than a community. My expectations of personal voice and moral compass (as opposed to the less emotional counterparts: terms of service and business professionalism) don't quite fit. Think more phonebook, less yenta. Still not for me.

So, I think about my concern for privacy and then I think about the stuff I do: the weblog, Orkut, Flickr, XFN, Amazon wishlist. Is it all just pollyanna-ism thinking that it's safe to share anything in a searchable environment? Can the organizational benefits of meeting other like-minded people (MoveOn.org, MeetUp) to work for political change offset the dangers of centralized information?

And if it doesn't, should people who value freedom and privacy (and all those other nice things the EFF and organizations like that fight for) give up the Web? Or just post everything with disguised authorship? What if MetaGrrrl was a shadowy figure with who "she" talks to and hangs out with couched in the vaguest terms? Never mentioning where exactly "she" lives or what "she" does. With no one ever standing up in person and saying "that's my site". Is that better? If social networking software and Googlebots (empowering the results of that mighty search engine) are inherently a blow against freedom and privacy, what kind of web are we envisioning? What's the goal here, folks? Is the bottom line "give up the tech toys"? Or is there some way to have the fun and prevent corporate and governmental abuse of privacy?

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Blog (noun) A weblog or similar brief journal usually containing links and commentary thereon. Term coined by Peter Merholz.
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Except where otherwise noted all content is copyright 1965-2012 Dinah Sanders. Please do not repost my writing or other creations elsewhere. Instead, copy a tiny bit and link to the rest. Thanks! Images are copyright of their original creators. MetaGrrrl logo and photos by Dinah are copyright 1965-2012 Dinah Sanders. Inkspot Books and the Inkspot logo have been Service Marks of Dinah Sanders since 1993.