Do you have facebook? If you run into an old acquaintance or meet someone new this question is bound to come up.
With over 300 million subscribers facebook has become an integral part of our lives. It helps us reconnect, plan events and get rid of old textbooks. It also means that friends and strangers can track duh duh duh our every move (well not really but almost). As a result of the real danger to privacy that facebook poses there has been a proliferation of media reports explaining both the risks associated with facebook, like the potential for identity theft and how to avoid becoming a victim of facebook (like losing your job for being online during company time). There are also videos and articles which provide instructions on how to enhance your privacy settings and which act as guides to facebook etiquette. The proliferation of facebook etiquette guides and warnings are the result of a growing awareness that through facebook we are being watched, just as we watch others. Facebook, like the panopticon described in Foucault’s book Discipline and Punish creates the feeling of constant surveillance. Users never know who is watching or when. This state of constant vigilance results in users taking the helpful advice provided on the Citytv website or msn.com and altering their behavior, in order to avoid punishment. Foucault called this internalization of discipline disciplinary power. In our surveillance society there is no need for “Big Brother” to keep constant watch because we discipline ourselves. The dispersed nature of power embodied by facebook challenges traditional notions of power as a top down process. The video below provides instructions on how not to use facebook.
This video is meant to be funny, but it accurately represents the potential for the decimation of misinformation via facebook. Facebook granted Alice the power to monitor Timmy’s behavior and share information about him. Though people may not be arrested for being suspected communists being a suspected terrorist could result in someone having a fate similar to Timmy’s.
Facebook’s privacy policy is clear. You have no privacy. Facebook now owns you. Yet we continue to encourage other people to join and post pictures of Friday night. Why?? Why don’t we demand a privacy policy which actually protects our privacy? Why does Google keep track of our searches? Why does Webct keep track of how long we looked at our course notes?
