Expansion from a Facebook Comment.
Well I've just revised all my privacy settings. To my satisfaction I found that they were already set to the level I saw fit was appropriate for a Facebook account. That is, one that reflects my personality type which would be something close to liberal.Social networking is the closest thing to airing out your gaunchies (underclothing) in public next to the clothes line. It reveals much more than what you expect everyone should know about you and it can reveal much less about people you don't know than what you thought you knew. It is also as shocking to you or to others to see stains on underwear hanging in plain view, whether they be yours or theirs.
Some people use the dryer for that precise reason, some hang only certain pieces of clothing. That being said laying out lingerie for your "special friend" across the street will probably attract more attention to yourself than you want. All things being equal it's just a matter of taste.
This parable helps me to point out that privacy is a very problematic issue simply because when you allow yourself to relinquish parts of your privacy to a chosen public arena your bound to get in trouble sometime. Social networks are by definition a PUBLIC arena, like a Grecian Agora of old where everyone (well almost) can contribute to an ongoing dialogue, expound their virtues, expose their stainless togas, share ideas about their favourite bard, their favourite fish monger, their favourite dinning hall, and even sell their wares and all freely... but all for a price.
I mean honestly when's the last time you thought that a secret remained a secret once you had told someone other than your pet hamster.
The irony is not that there is a price. No, we expect to pay a price. The irony is that we readily sell our privacy to belong. We pay with privacy to be free to express ourselves amongst ourselves. It is fair to say that these social community tools are playing havoc with our instincts. Those closely tied to self preservation and control. These rabid yet protective instincts raise questions such as: To share or not to share? In how many W's 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 (who, what, where, when and why) should I share? Is there a big brother watching? Is big brother smaller than we think? Who is (are) this (there) little big brother(s) anyway? Is it called Face_Google_Soft or is it Aunt Moreen from Eves-drop city, some-Province_or_State, Can-USA-Desh?
Face-Google-Soft et. al. this blog network...which are part of that virtual yet organic fungi that some technolocrats coined the Web 2.0. (wikipedia reference needed here and my apologies for calling you a technolocrate) is (are) the basis of the new information-sharing age (yes hyphenated) dream. Although technically it starts even closer to home, right in our minds.
Like their predecessors (such as the "Soft" in Face-Google-Soft) the issue of "Privacy" has been first and foremost on the developers and technolocrats minds, right next to revenue, customer loyalty and brand revenue (all words for survival). But in the end the principal question that has plagued them all is where to draw the line of freedom? Since privacy is in a sense the antithesis to free. Privacy is ownership. Previous to the Softs came many others who philosophised throughout the history of humanity about this question and here/now like in many other ages do we meditate about the basic of notions of Freedom and again the 5w's of the matter. Although 3W's may actually be an appropirate analogy, or the state of affaires in the here now.
For as the pundits say Web 2.0. is the democratisation of information yet like real democracy it is flawed and often falls far below it’s laudable goal. Take the word "free" for instance - that is relative - therefore it is fair to assume that some W's are left out of the loop. The who's, some where's and likely some who form the when's.
On the upside because this communications ecosystem is based on a faulty yet somewhat democratic variety of fungi, it is growing exponentially in cyberspace in very diverse forms, the notions and philosophies of freedom are being tested as it grows. They are being practiced rather than spoken and abstracted, and there are many barriers that are falling.
It is true that Face-Goole-Soft is invading each of our privacies and that is the nature of its framework. It is based on the free exchange of information, which is being offered "virtually" for free, and through our individual choice to be part of the networks(s) we want to invent. In essence we enter into the freedom of invading each others privacy. A voyeuristic-exhibitionist-free-for-all. We have decided to air out our laundry and we run the constant risk of learning more about ourselves than we once intended to reveal.
freedom (gregariousness), individual, creation, flow > ≠ < restraint (privacy), community, harness, framework
-30-
This outpouring of blogthough is in progress… I'm still working out notions and I suppose I'll have to be doing a bit more readings to continue.
Here is a capture of an untitled work executed in 2008. It is part of a project that I began during my final year at Concordia University in 1995-96. I had called it “peripheral vision art”, and later renamed it the “Nature of Multiplicity.” It is a work which I thought I would have completed by now but it seems to still linger on; mostly in pieces within dusty shoe boxes and plastic bins amongst the tubes of hardening paint. 