760: on kirkpatrick

"The age of privacy is over..."

As many of the comments to the article reflect, I think we have to start by identifying the "age" we're talking about and the definition of "privacy" we're working with.

I completely agree with Kirkpatrick's assessment that "Facebook itself is a major agent of social change..." FB's position that, "People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people" is anecdotal and sloppy at best.

On the other hand, Kirkpatrick's claim that, "Accessible social networking technology changes communication between people in a way similar to if not as intensely as the introduction of the telephone and the printing press" is a shoddy apples-to-oranges comparison. Privacy in cyberspace is not as simplistic as un-listing your phone number from Yellow Pages.

I think we would all agree that social norms have changed since the advent of the printing press and the telephone. Similarly, technology has changed in ways that draw vast communities of people "closer" together -- in intended and unintended ways. The basic concept of privacy -- of what people want other people to know about them -- has similarly been changed. I don't think, as FB claims, that systems are modified to "reflect what the current social norms are." Quite to the contrary, I think the systems shape and drive many of those norms -- they facilitate the openness and make possible the sharing of information in ways that people are not prepared to deal with.

On a wider scale, I'm a troubled that 8 sentences uttered by a 26 year-old can have such a dramatic impact on the daily activities of 350 million people. Maybe that sounds like crotchety-old-man-speak, but I have similar concerns with the likes of Larry Ellison, Bill Gates, and Steve Jobs.