Friday, December 14, 2007
MySpace or Yours?
I hate "social networking" sites. MySpace. Facebook. MSNsomethingorother. They are everything that is wrong with the internet. They are a spammer's fantasy come true: people intentionally go out an post personal information, and try to create as many links as possible with other people, interconnecting everyone's information for spammers to sweep up. And you may not even be aware of it (I wasn't until recently), but there have been serious privacy issues: sites like facebook will link to your other accounts WITHOUT YOU KNOWING and can broadcast what song you're listening to on iTunes, what your last purchase on amazon.com was, and how much Preparation H you have left in the tube at home. And don't get me started on the DREADFUL user interfaces and obscenely cluttered page layouts surrounding all of these sites. I don't care that you are on Page 114 of A Thousand Splendid Suns. I don't care what kind of Zombie you are.
Be that as it may, a couple months ago I had to get some screen captures of Facebook pages for a project at work. In order to browse the site however, I had to sign up. So I signed up using a fake name and set up account. (I am "Kevin Flynn", the computer programmer who got sucked into the computer in Tron.) But because I registered using my work email address, somehow people are finding me and I started getting requests from people wanting to be my friend. NO! I am not clicking on an artificial link on a fake webpage. The page is not mine. I mean, it's "mine", but it's not "me".
Facebook/MySpace are from the Devil. Unless you are a 9-year old girl, or want to meet a 9-year old girl, stop using these sites.
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I hate "social networking" sites. MySpace. Facebook. MSNsomethingorother. They are everything that is wrong with the internet. They are a spammer's fantasy come true: people intentionally go out an post personal information, and try to create as many links as possible with other people, interconnecting everyone's information for spammers to sweep up. And you may not even be aware of it (I wasn't until recently), but there have been serious privacy issues: sites like facebook will link to your other accounts WITHOUT YOU KNOWING and can broadcast what song you're listening to on iTunes, what your last purchase on amazon.com was, and how much Preparation H you have left in the tube at home. And don't get me started on the DREADFUL user interfaces and obscenely cluttered page layouts surrounding all of these sites. I don't care that you are on Page 114 of A Thousand Splendid Suns. I don't care what kind of Zombie you are.
Be that as it may, a couple months ago I had to get some screen captures of Facebook pages for a project at work. In order to browse the site however, I had to sign up. So I signed up using a fake name and set up account. (I am "Kevin Flynn", the computer programmer who got sucked into the computer in Tron.) But because I registered using my work email address, somehow people are finding me and I started getting requests from people wanting to be my friend. NO! I am not clicking on an artificial link on a fake webpage. The page is not mine. I mean, it's "mine", but it's not "me".
Facebook/MySpace are from the Devil. Unless you are a 9-year old girl, or want to meet a 9-year old girl, stop using these sites.
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