I stepped in it on Facebook last night and I’ve been feeling bad about it all day. I’m sorry and I mean that. I should’ve sat on my hands.

I won’t go into the details but the issue was that status “meme” that somebody somewhere started. A bunch of “legalese” gobblety-gook that, if you post it as your status, you will supposedly become exempt from Facebook’s Data Use Policy. Whatever that is. Supposedly this was necessary because Facebook is now a publicly traded entity. Yeah, roight. I usually ignore stuff like that but so many people posted it yesterday (INTELLIGENT people!) that I ended up getting irritated and looking it up on Snopes. Here’s what Snopes had to say and here is Slate today.

Other than the fact that I am not fond of memes from the get go (they clutter up the internet), I’m not really sure why so many people always seem to be so freaked out about Facebook and its privacy policy. Did you read the privacy policy when you signed up? I didn’t. I have no idea what’s in it. And I don’t particularly care. For one thing, Facebook is a *social media* site where people *share* things. I don’t have my thoughts about this totally sorted out but to me, that concept is rather counter-intuitive to the concept of “privacy”. If you want to keep something private, don’t put it on the Internet! For the most part, I don’t put stuff out there that I wouldn’t want my grandmother (or my kids (or my boss)) to see. For the most part? Yes. Because I have *definitely* broken my own little rule, sometimes egregiously — like last night. Diarrhea of the keyboard got the better of me and today I sat there slumped in my loverly, dog-poopy cubicle eating crow all day feeling bad that I had wounded someone I loved with my words. I’ll probably post something egregiously stupid again. I am human. I err.

In general, if I post a photo of something, I would prefer that everybody and his special friend from the planet Zephron III didn’t repost it without my permission. But guess what? If they really want one of my crappy iPhone photooos that badly, I’m not gonna sweat it.¹ There are about a gazillion more where that one came from and most of them never get posted. I understand if others are more squeamish. If you are, don’t post. Heck, my globetrotting coffee buddy MMCB has had a Facebook profile at least as long as I have (actually, she tracks my whereabouts via Facebook <grin>) and she *never* posts anything. She uses Facebook exclusively to play Word Scraper with her sister and a few other people² (and to keep track of her friends).

I’m willing to accept the risks involved in posting stuff on Facebook because I enjoy the benefits. Being connected with family and friends near and far and from the past is worth the risk for me. As for the IPO? I do not know why *any* company thinks that people are going to routinely click on the ads that clutter their web pages. I do not. I just don’t get it. For one thing (and this is where I contradict myself (I think)), I don’t want anybody in my social network to know that I have clicked on an ad. So I don’t.

¹ Actually, a couple of times, people have asked for permission to post one of my photos. Not everyone is bad.

² I will NEVER play Word Scraper (some version of Scrabble, I think) with MMCB. I would lose big-time. Dream Scrabble game? Pooh and MMCB.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 5th, 2012 at 6:31 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.