Today (Thursday, September 12, 2013) the New York
Times, in Business Day, reported on an FTC inquiry on Facebook’s recently proposed privacy
changes, in an article by Vindu Goel and Edward Wyatt, link here. The
controversy seems to deal with Facebook’s practice of “sponsored story”
advertising, where a user’s (favorable) comments about some particular company’s
product or service is given more prominence in the display before “friends”
that it would otherwise normally get as with the Timeline. There is a possibility that it could annoy friends,
or convey a misleading impression of the subject’s activity. However, it is not quite the same thing as an
underground endorsement, because it does not make a public broadcast of the
user’s comments outside of the Facebook whitelist. It’s not hard to imagine, however, how this
could present touchy incidents with employers, or among teachers and
students.
Tech Crunch has an analysis and direct link to the proposed Facebook changes, Aug. 29, here.
Tech Crunch has an analysis and direct link to the proposed Facebook changes, Aug. 29, here.
Slate has a more revealing article, dated Sept. 4, by Amy Webb, “We post nothing about our daughter online” (except
maybe one baby picture), which shows the insidious danger to children and young
people as digital technology for tagging and automated facial recognition grows
in the future. Anonymity, privacy, and separation as I knew it (as a gay man)
for much of my adult life, until I made myself very public in 1997, would be
impossible.
I do, as a matter of my own practice, have a real
problem with the idea of being expected to “endorse” anything because that
compromises my objectivity as a journalist, and amounts to a possible ethical
conflict of interest. (I had to deal
with this big time in 1997 when I published my first book, as I have explained
before with my own dealings with the military.)
Facebook’s practice probably
would not cause me a real problem in the way I conduct my own web and real world
presence, but it could for other people.
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