To all those complaining about the new Facebook functionality

For those out of the Facebook loop: the popular social networking site has recently implemented a sort of news feed functionality. When someone within your network makes a change to his or her profile, that change is posted on a news page displayed when you first log in. The developers saw this as a convenience. Previously, users would only get notifications about which of their friends had updated their profiles, with no information whatsoever about what part of the profile had actually been updated. This has caused a massive uproar about invasion of privacy. Every tech news site I've been to in the past few days has had something to say about it.

Now, onto the point I would like to make to all the people bitching and moaning about this functionality constituting an invasion of privacy:

Shut. The hell. Up.

Guess what? Facebook didn't put your personal information on its website. You did.

Trying to hide the fact that you TiVo Celebrity Fit Club? Don't want people to know about your unhealthy attachment to your toaster? Then don't put it on the fucking Interweb, dumbass!

We've seen this time and time again. School kids get called into the Principal's office for saying horrible things about teachers on their MySpace profiles. Idiots get fired for something they wrote in their blog, or can't even get an interview because every other sentence on their personal web site mentions the fact that they hate working. Thanksgivings across the country are made extremely awkward because Mom found a link in your AIM profile to your user page on IDreamOfRainbowBrightInABadWay.com. You'd think people would learn, but apparently that's not the case.

The Internet is more or less a gigantic billboard. It's not just a place for you to store information - it's also the mechanism for retrieving that information. And believe it or not, more people pay attention to it than you might think, as evidenced by the ten or so people who usually read this blog - and you thought you were the only one!

It's no different than being out in public. Every individual acts a certain way around other people, both to project that individual's desired image and to protect the parts of him/herself that he/she doesn't want others to know about. Any Internet persona is perpetually public, and thus anyone using the Internet needs to take that into account. You wouldn't plant a sign in front of your house saying "I grow pot in my basement!" now would you? So don't put it on the net.

And now, to light the mood a bit, a bulleted list:

• Don't want people to know which way you swing? Don't put it on the Interweb.
• Don't want mom to see that picture of you shotgunning a PBR naked while riding a llama at a frat party? Don't put it on the Interweb.
• Don't want people to know you think Scott Colby is totally hot and you want to give him your yacht? Don't put it on the Interweb (no one would blame you at all for wanting to hide that little tidbit).

In closing, let's use this blog as an example. It's full of my half-assed opinions on everything from kitchen appliances to pop stars to public transportation to stupid social networking websites. None of these are things I'm ashamed of, and none of these are things I want to hide. The shit I don't want you to know about stays locked safely in my own head, where I'm guaranteed to completely forget it in a day or two, thus saving the planet from a massive aneurysm. And I don't write about anything involving work because Interweb history has shown that writing about your job is one of the dumbest things you could possibly do, regardless of whether you're intending to say something good or bad. This is called "responsibility." Fucking get some already.