According to a Mashable post from two months ago, Wikileaks is “a demonstration of the power the Internet has to ensure that secrets are nearly impossible to keep,” and we are seeing the impact and inherent appeal of sharing secrets online with the news that 91,000 documents from the Afghan war were posted on the site.
The story was covered by major news organizations, blogs, broadcast and radio, and according to Paul McDougall of InformationWeek, ”Sunday’s publication has drawn comparisons to the Pentagon Papers incident in 1971. “Had that case occurred today, Ellsberg, like Wikileaks, could have posted the documents online directly,” McDougall wrote.
McDougall called the release of the documents the “latest sign of how social media technologies are giving private citizens or small groups enormous power to directly influence debate on key public issues.”
It will be interesting to see how this plays out online, and if the open nature fostered by the Obama campaign and administration, especially when using social media, will ring true when dealing with this news. For additional commentary, check out this post from Jay Rosen, a journalism professor at NYU, member of the Wikipedia advisory board and blogger for Huffington Post and Press Think (among others).
Prince thinks the internet is “completely over” - and though we know what a tech visionary he is, let’s keep blogging as if that weren’t true…
Subscribing to (then promptly unsubscribing from) a mailing list. Ordering the latest trashy beach read from Amazon. Poking your crush on Facebook. Sending that generous Nigerian your bank info so he can get around harsh government regulations and let you earn millions (hello, easy money). Chances are, if you’re reading this blog, you’re already pretty entrenched in the internet. Well, here’s some news for you: YOU’RE NEVER GETTING OUT.
While there are services that can help you hunt down every cookie and megabyte of data that is tied to your identity, they are in no way comprehensive, removing only 80 to 90 percent of personal information from the World Wide Web. You can try to do it yourself…and I don’t know about you, but I barely remember what I ate for lunch last week, much less every single website I’ve visited since my family finally installed AOL 2.0 (dial-up!) some 13 years ago.
But let’s say I’m one of those people who only check out “the Yahoo” mail (hi Mom!) once in a while. Even if I could list out every URL I’ve ever typed or clicked, the company or organization at the other end may be hesitant to help me delete whatever information I’ve left behind on their servers. In their eyes, this data is their asset, helping them create more tailored advertising and marketing strategies.
This doesn’t really bother me, as I never really planned on quitting the internet and I’m pretty used to Big Brother, but I can see how it would concern those with privacy concerns. What about you guys? Do you see yourself paying someone to scrub the interwebz clean of your identity?
Con: That Zuckerberg will probably know more about you than your future spouse.
Pro: Falling victim to the Praetorians may not be so easy now.
Confused about Facebook’s newest privacy settings? Join the club. The New York Times created a handy infographic of all 50 settings and 170 options. No wonder my poor mom, a recent Facebook convert, is having trouble figuring it all out.
In addition, this cool interactive graphic from web developer Matt McKeon shows how Facebook’s default privacy settings have become more public over time.
Who’s really getting the most benefit out of Facebook? Divorce lawyers.
Because of fresh connections created with old flames and introductions to new people, it makes sense that social media, specifically Facebook, is conducive to “e-philandering,” the term for online cheating.
According to the article on DailyFinance.com, one lawyer stated that almost one in every five divorce petitions his company processes involves a mention of Facebook.
Even better (for the lawyers) is that much of the inappropriate information shared by guilty parties is traceable and public (make sure you set those privacy settings!).
“ I want everybody here to be careful about what you post on Facebook because in the YouTube age, whatever you do will be pulled up again later somewhere in your life.
President Barack Obama
Tech-heads went ballistic this weekend when Facebook changed its Terms of Service Agreement over to something along the lines of “We own you.” Facebook CEO and boy-wonder Mark Zuckerberg responded without remorse, confirming that he does, indeed, have total control over us.
I’m very aware that Google Latitude (which tracks your location through your smartphone signal) opens the door for innovation in mobile advertising, in addition to other things. However, effective as it may be in the future, I just cannot get past the creepiness factor of someone knowing where I am at all times. It looks as though the watchdog group Privacy International agrees with me, as they released a statement about privacy concerns about the hyped-up system:
“As it stands right now, Latitude could be a gift to stalkers, prying employers, jealous partners and obsessive friends,” Simon Davies, director of Privacy International, said.
Latititude lovers will defend the tracker by saying that users don’t have to participate because its an opt-in service, but Privacy International makes a great point by stating that any third party who gets a hold of your phone (mischievous friends, phone repair shops, weirdos) can turn it on when you’re not looking.
Many of my friends who are teachers ask me how they should handle having a presence on social networks without causing conflict in their position. From now on, my answer will be “Not like Stacy Snyder,” a teaching student at Millersville University who posted pictures on MySpace of herself boozing it up while wearing a pirate hat, and was subsequently dismissed from her teaching program. Good job, Stacester, although now you’ll probably have to look into more low-profile employment opportunities such as delivering the mail, you know, instead of acting as a role model for the children of America.
Is your dirty laundry being aired out in cyberspace?
Do you ever feel as if the web has access to your personal diary? It’s like the Internet knows all of your secrets. The Web is always sending targeted pop-ups that you might not want to see (like you’re overweight, single, etc…) And now, Facebook is sending them too! Glamour.com recently posted on the topic and so has Yahoo! Shine and the Washington Post. Glamour.com writer Rachel Beckman summed up her experience like this:
Every time I logged in to my home page, Facebook’s ads screamed at me with all the subtlety of a drill sergeant: “MUFFIN TOP.” With the knowledge that I was engaged to be married, the site splashed an ad across the left side of the screen playing into a presumed vulnerability. Do you want to be a fat bride? You’d better go to such-and-such Web site to learn how to lose weight before the big day.”
Celeste explores the moral questions surrounding university administrations monitoring Facebook for aberrant or nefarious behavior among students. Imperative or intrusive?
Today’s hoopla over 
