Compassion in Politics: Christian Social Justice, Non-Profits, and Life Theology

Wikihow has your answer to blocking Facebook Beacon.  If you have other educational or lifehack type information, you might share it at Wikihow and make the world a better place.  Drop a little knowledge out there….

Check out this link from Nick of Allfacebook. If you want to know about using Facebook for organizing, check out Nicks video here. This event was sponsored by the folks at the New Organizing Insitute.

Two key points arose in relation to cultivating a community on social networking sites like Facebook:

• Using badges for Facebook posted on your main website.

• How do our constituents, users, and connect? (essentially what need do I fulfill their needs and wants with my Facebook group?)

Very simple, but seemingly very effective.

Wendy Koch of the USA Today reports:

Facebook, the second-largest social-networking site, must respond within “a few weeks” to requests by state attorneys general that it do more to protect kids from sexual predators, says Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal.

Why now? Why facebook? The article concludes:

Fewer predators appear to be soliciting kids on Facebook than on MySpace, but that may change now that Facebook allows anyone to register, says North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper.

Cooper says the attorneys general want Facebook to require parental consent before someone under 18 can register and to verify the ages of its users.

I have to salute North Carolins and Mr. Cooper for standing up for the interest of teens.

 *** Will update when I have time…

As our society becomes increasingly transparent due to the rise in information technologies the the conflict between privacy and transparency will  rear its head with ever pronounced vigor.

Last week theorist Dana Boyd launched a critique of Facebook opening up to Google search. (aka opening up their previously walled garden of information–and identity).  Web and technology evangelist Scoble responded in true form and I decided to weighed in as well.

Dana’s latest update in this ongoing tech/culture saga raises four key issues:

It’s OK to be transparent when you look like everyone else, but go ask the gay Christian living in an Arab state how he feels about being transparent about his social world.

The issue of age-defined boundaries:

When I interview teens, 80%+ of their FB network is from their high school. Only 8% of my network is from Berkeley and the largest network (San Francisco) only comprises 17% of my network. Networks don’t work for highly-mobile 25+ crowd because they don’t live in pre-defined networks. 

What does privacy mean in a Web 2.0 world and how can we negotiate it?

C

an people who want to be private live alongside those who want to be PUBLIC? How are boundaries going to be negotiated? It seems to me that this all comes back to context and context is really getting cloudy here.

Dana eludes to shades of Foucault’s Panopticon or perhaps Brave New World (not surprising for a critical media scholar):

The goal doesn’t seem to be about helping people maintain privacy; it seems more like pushing them to accept a world where they are constantly aware of everyone around them. Hmm…

Ultimately, Dana and I seem to agree on the issue.  Dana makes a strong case for teens having strong privacy settings.  Utlimately, if Facebook doesn’t install such protections, my guess is it could have a rather large PR issue due to parental backlash on its hands.  

Along these lines Dana points to her earlier criticism of the Facebook newsfeed, which is interlaced with personal narratives about the transparency v. privacy conflict (aka privacy trainwreck) that digital citizens are forced to negotiate on a daily basis.  (This bears further investigation given the daily encounter with both the larger value conflict and the facebook environment, or “My Pretty” as Dana thinks tech geeks should refer to it in light of their FB worship.)  She links to a MoBozz video that highlights the Facebook feed in a philosophical light.  And she points to the documented rise of social isolation. 

The technogeek blogosphere is abuzz with the

Scobleizer v. Dana Boyd throwdown over Facebook.  Facebook is preparing to open its profiles to Google search.  Maven and interactive web theorist Dana Boyd outlines some fundamental concerns with Facebook and it being the golden chalice of social networking.

Dana is correct to be worried about privacy concerns.  However, I believe consumers should have the control over their privacy rather than a closed garden model which keeps people in informational and community silos.  A failure to take those walls down lives short of the vision of a flat earth and instead installs artificial walls on communication, conversation, and community.

Boyd is correct about one thing–there are too many hoops, rules, and regulations. Dana mentioned the Baratunde’s recent struggles with Facebook and I think they are both probably 100% correct. Additionally, the inability to have over 1000 people in a group is disasterous for non-profits and organizations who want to maintain a decent email list in Facebook. For me, this is a metaphor for the walled garden effect that Dana seems to be indicting, yet wanting for privacy reasons. 

Facebook is (potentially) useful for 1) integrating my social networking lifestream (although plaxo seems like it has the distinct edge for the near future).  2) Real time social networking probably via chat.  (I can’t stress this enough, because otherwise the communication is rather static) 3) Hopefully will serve as a search portal too or at least will have easy integration with google.  It needs more community friendly features.  4) So 99% of apps are rather useless and whimsical.  Bookshelf, music, and movie apps are moderately helpful.  I imagine the friend ranking (which seems ikky for some reason) will eventually prove to help in developing more three dimensional social networking.  However, I don’t need 14 different ways to post on someone’s wall. 5) Facebook even has additional advantages for non-profits, as Beth Kanter point out.

Overall, Boyd’s indictment seems to lean far too much toward techno-pessimism and ignores the promise of what Facebook will be 3 months and 3 years down the road.  If there is to be a walled garden in any respect, the consumer (or rather pro-sumer) should be in charge of its shape and size, instead of Web 2.0 execs or developers.  Keep in mind, I mean no ill will to Ms. Boyd. I like her work a great deal and respect her, I just kindly disagree. I think she and Scobel did a great job of getting the conversation going on this issue so important to identity 2.0 and online communities. Surprisingly probably agree far more about online communities and social networking than the above might imply. If you would like to see my other indicts of the Facebook platform and musings about the future of social media/networking, you can dive in here (and scroll down).

Thanks to Susan Kitchens at 2020hindsight and Jill Davis Doughtie at Eyelevel Pasadena for the top photo.

What do you think is Facebook’s missing feature? I firmly believe that the three features most in need of change are:1) More options for lowering of artificial privacy walls.2) More features that encourage community (perhaps even real time sharing whether that mimics a chat like Beebo or Campfire or whatever).  I made this argument earlier this week.3) According to Chris Garret, discoverability like stumble upon, digg, and delicious. (i don’t agree with the digg part entirely, as I think it gets gamed inappropriately)

Walling off the digitally flat world like a cocoon:Artificial borders between the Global/local community

Is Facebook another brick in the wall? The network walls between local communities in facebook make it a digital sandbox thats fundamentally walled off. For instance, I couldn’t learn from anyone outside the DC region right now.Sure privacy settings are important, but not all our data needs to be private. I just don’t want nefarious folks knowing my contact info (addy, phone, email). Otherwise, I really don’t care. Clearly folks are willing to give up some of the privacy constraints of Facebook. Look at myspace. Look at blogs. In fact, Plaxo launched recently to consolidate your social networking life (the new buzz word is “life stream”) It has variable settings in terms of privacy. There is no reason why Facebook can’t do the same… And my guess is that things will move in that direction. If I want to live my life outloud, digitally and otherwise, why can’t I???

Facebook is making moves to become the next Google. The Scobelizer indicates that Facebook has a couple upcoming upgrades Speaking of culture, Megan Berry at the Huffington Post has an insightful article on the collision of private and professional life due to Facebook. You can keep up with upcoming facebook applications at Allfacebook.com