The Blog Studio

“I felt a great disturbance in the Force… as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror...”
-Obi Wan Kenobi, “A New Hope”

There has been near hysteria building in the tech community, as well as in the wider world concerning Facebook’s privacy policies, and possible user betrayal. The safety of our facebook “avatars” are being threatened!  Have we sold our secrets and ourselves to an amoral corporation?

Facebook transformed the web, and along with it revolutionized human connectivity, communication and supernova’ed the circulation of ideas, but as the old Star Wars adage tells us “you have paid the highest price for your lack of vision.” Facebook has attracted an unprecedented number of users who automatically agreed to place their identities in Mark Zuckerberg’s outstretched hands.  It started with university students who related to Mark’s youth and admired his forward thinking.  They jumped on a social spaceship, piloted by Zuckerberg, to boldly go where no one had gone before. They also seem to like pretending to be virtual farmers, cultivating a virtual environment.

People are starting to realize that Zuck might be Vader and not Anakin.  As is usually the case with technology, what appears to be empowering, and often is, can also lead to tyranny.  If our technological revolutionaries and friends from Star Wars have taught us anything it is that the line between good and evil can be perilous.

Many of us have already smartened up and altered the way in which we are using facebook. Maybe we’re not using private messages to send our most intimate thoughts or secrets, for fear that they’ll end up public like so many recently have. Some of us are resisting the urge to post amusing, but slightly off-color signatures on friend’s walls, or screening and scrutinizing the photos we post and tag. After all, what will we think of them when we are 50?  Even more concerning, is wondering what our spouses, bosses, decision makers and the general public think of the electronic follies of our youth?  How will anyone be fit to run for public office?

We also have to think about what this means for us historically, in a larger sense, and not just in the facebook bubble. The Library of Congress will be archiving all “tweets” from 2006 onwards, giving us another reason to pause for a second before we hit that send button willy-nilly. We really need to look before we leap (or tweet).  With social media comes social consciousness and social responsibility. The bottom line is that you have to use your head before releasing anything to the web. The power of words can have resounding and far-reaching effects. Then again, maybe your words aren’t yours anymore. They now belong to the government, or Mark Zuckerberg, or the magical elves that run Twitter.

Copycat sites that champion user privacy are beginning to pop up everywhere (ie. Project Diaspora), but are people really abandoning Facebook? If they aren’t leaving now, what will be the new site or feature that creates the tipping point and sends them overboard?? There have been rumours circulating that MySpace is busy creating new privacy settings, to woo back disaffected users that are frustrated with Facebook’s new privacy changes. Is MySpace about to be the new hot thing for the second time?

Considering all of the propaganda, speculation, and reports of facebook’s indifference to personal privacy, people are definitely alarmed.  Maybe it’s time the usually clandestine Zuckerberg addresses the world in an open letter that outlines the implications of having put our trust in him.  We’d like to know what his intentions are, and remind him that our love is turning to fear. He needs to be reminded of the sage advice of Yoda: “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Hopefully our leader will lean more towards benevolence than hubris.

More than anything, Zuckerberg must learn that “With great power comes great responsibility”. The lure of darkness is always seductive, and seems to have quick pay-offs, but every major villain from Antonio Montana to the Borg Queen is brought down by Data and the common good.

Indeed, what creates us can also destroy us… but just like Seven of Nine we can defy the superpower collective and take control of our destinies.

Mark, we are hailing you: we’ve opened a channel for communication.  We have come in peace and we are your Facebook civilization. We are waiting for your response.