A big interest of mine is digital privacy, especially in the context of having an online presence. Granted, by having a “free” account on Facebook, we do put some of our personal data up for sale. But the trend is to assume having an online presence means open access to anything we put online simply because we may say “ok, you can use the fact I’m a 27 year-old male in the North Eastern US to appeal to advertisers”. That would be true, but if that’s the case, why give us privacy controls?
With that said, I have installed certain features on this site that connect to Facebook or other social media applications. I did not do this because I have an interest in data-mining anyone who may read my posts here, but more because of likely mutual interest to me and anyone who reads this site and uses social media. I have an interest in seeing who is looking at my work, and people have an interest in using universal logins, sharing what they they like, and just expanding their digital presence. Personally, I haven’t even linked this blog to my personal Facebook account yet, and I’m not sure if I will yet. On top of that, installing the features on here have required me to make a Facebook app for this site, a process that has the data of users involved at almost every step of the creation process. It’s almost as if content comes second to the data.
However, I strongly strongly suggest you think twice about linking anything not on Facebook to your Facebook account. Part of me says this because of paranoia about snooping businesses not trying to sell you anything: the digital dossiers that could be made and sold to potential or current employers about people’s reading habits. It’s very Orwellian. And more disturbingly, some businesses feel they have a right to this information. Flip it around, it’s almost as if they’re finding ways to circumvent the DMCA that is your privacy controls on Facebook (or whatever may be left of them). On the other hand, the info is just valuable simply for the fact that someone can monetize your reading habits. You may like this, or you may be wholly unaware of it. I just wanted to try and make you more aware.
So, what it comes down to is that I promise to be harmless. I wouldn’t know how to sell the info that is collected by installing them if I wanted to. But that doesn’t mean I’m the only one who has access to this, and I urge you to think twice about liking or linking to anything that isn’t self-contained.