My point being, people give up a lot of privacy on Facebook and they do most of it voluntarily or even eagerly. And I'm not even saying it's a bad thing. I like being able to passively keep track of what's going on with various people in my life and status updates and photos let me do that. Plus, with a lot of families living so far apart, being able to post videos and photos of major events is a good thing.
That said, I've noticed that Facebook has a knack for somehow making even benign things creepy. Maybe it's because I'm on the defensive due to Facebook rolling out new features that are invasive and making the least private option the default setting. Maybe it's because I'm aware of the fact that Facebook is a large company whose primary goal is making money and who realized early on that the key to making money was encouraging people to share everything with little or not regard to the consequences. (And maybe that makes me uncomfortable because I'm pretty the Girls Gone Wild videos operate on the same principle.)
Or maybe it's because Facebook presents information in a creepy and awkward way. For instance, tonight, I made a post about being excited that my favorite teahouse was doing a tasting event for my favorite tea (Darjeeling, in case anyone is making their Christmas list early) and the opera is performing an Indian folktalke, The Flowering Tree, the week after. I then discovered that Facebook shows friends' interests that are related to your updates, because showed in the little space where ads and things my friends like show up that "X likes opera."
Is this private information? No, because people had to voluntarily click like. It's even topical. But it's awkward. In fact, it sounds like a conversation with one of those socially awkward people that never seems to be able to carry their part of the conversation. You know, where you tell someone your great and clever story about the charming, funny person you met on your trip to Paris and the person replies "I like French fries."
I guess it's good to find out more about my friends and I suppose this is Facebook's way of
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