I don't have and probably never will have a Facebook account - so I don't know what all the hoopla is about.
But I read Tom Hodginson's op-ed about the phenomenon that is Facebook with great interest. Tom wrote about the "real" backers of the website, its role in an experiment of the capitalization of friendship, and its link to the CIA:
The US defence department and the CIA love technology because it makes spying easier. "We need to find new ways to deter new adversaries," defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in 2003. "We need to make the leap into the information age, which is the critical foundation of our transformation efforts." In-Q-Tel's first chairman was Gilman Louie, who served on the board of the NVCA with Breyer. Another key figure in the In-Q-Tel team is Anita K Jones, former director of defence research and engineering for the US department of defence, and - with Breyer - board member of BBN Technologies. When she left the US department of defence, Senator Chuck Robb paid her the following tribute: "She
brought the technology and operational military communities together to design detailed plans to sustain US dominance on the battlefield into the next century."Now even if you don't buy the idea that Facebook is some kind of extension of the American imperialist programme crossed with a massive information-gathering tool, there is no way of denying that as a business, it is pure mega-genius.
Last year, I changed my profile so that only my friends could view it. I never did put intimate personal details on it, and if some company wants to pay money to find out that I like Arrested Development, that's OK by me.
Hodginson sounds like he doesn't quite understand the way most people use Facebook -- it's not a replacement for your social life, but rather an extension of it, if even that. Yes, perhaps in the future people will interact with each other solely in virtual space, but you know what? It'll be because they choose to do that over the real world. This choice will remain incomprehensible to Hodginson and those who are used to doing things the old way.
it's a social networking site just figuring out how to make some money.
the info you put through it could be used against you, but people are aware of that and withhold certain info accordingly.