The discussion over on the blue, with regard to facebook and its approach to privacy has been an interesting read too.

I love the idea of an open-source Facebook. I doubt everyone would migrate, though - not everyone's literate about internet freedom and privacy.

That's just it, isn't it? FB has such incredible numbers. And, it's that totality of membership that makes it as valuable to its members. I know a half-dozen people who have joined recently, just so they wouldn't miss out on events, etc.

People use it to share big news, too, because it's almost a one-stop solution. That would be really hard to replace, especially when the screaming majority of users don't think that there's any issue at all!

All I've done is strip out as much of my "likes" as possible. Now, people will have NO IDEA that I like The Replacements, or Mordecai Richler...

I don't have a Facebook account. Originally I shied away because it just sounded TOO connected (co-workers following what I do online? People from high school finding me again? NO THANKS) but in light of the "evolution" of the site's privacy guidelines, I'm doubly glad now that I never joined.

Yeah, BoringPostcards, if I'd not joined...I'd be leaning away from it at this point for sure. It's funny, it was this place, or the blue, that brought it to my attention. I think I can recall at time when gaspode was my only friend on facebook!

I spent some time this weekend stripping out a lot of info on my profile. I never really used it much anyways and so I figure I can just leave it fairly blank.

not everyone's literate about internet freedom and privacy.

And this is my biggest problem with FB: that my information is shared not only through my account, but potentially through my friends' accounts. This is compounded by the fact that the friends who are only on FB (the ones who think it's weird and nerdy to blog or to use email daily) are likely to be the least privacy-savvy of my friends and therefore the most likely to be inadvertently sharing info.

likely to be the least privacy-savvy of my friends and therefore the most likely to be inadvertently sharing info

Totally true. This goes for a lot of older people, too - not that all older people are less net-savvy, but some of them really are in there grappling with basic ideas like how to get email without an inbox full of SPAM, and feel like the internet is sort of a wild ride that they're hanging onto for dear life. It's hard to expect people like that to be tinkering with their settings, which are pretty hard to find in the first place, and depend on you wanting to find them pretty badly.