136 thoughts on “on the internet, nobody knows that you’re a dog”

1. You honestly think that Facebook, as a corporation, isn’t making money? Maybe not gazillions, but they sure as hell aren’t running a social media site for free out of the kindness of their collective heart. Oh well, enjoy your lack of privacy while they “don’t” sell your personal info to the highest bidder.

2. Honestly, I find the freak out over Facebook and its privacy policies to be completely ridiculous. Every single company which has my information has misused it in some way — sold it to someone else who sends me junk mail, trying to entice me to buy magazines or use their convenience checks or sign up for their fraudulent ‘car warranty’. Facebook didn’t start this and it won’t end it; in fact, Facebook has been a lot more responsible with the information I gave it than, say, my credit card company, which just sent us yet another notice of security breach in the mail yesterday.
   The fact is, no one is forced to put any of this information into Facebook to use it. It simply makes it -more- useful as a social network to supply it with actual information to use to create the network. But it’s still a choice. Once you’ve surrendered the info to the company you always have to expect they’re going to use it the way most profitable to themselves. If twitter doesn’t figure out a way to do something similar within the next year I will die of shock. (Or they will run out of money.)

3. Great link, Rick. I love this part:
   Facebook and Google are INTERNET services. Internet equals public space. Or at least, people should consider it to be so.
   It’s more accurate to say that information technologies are eroding the length of time that is required to access your data.

4. I’d like to echo what Justin Alexander, Jason, and psammead said. Facebook is a free service that has provided me the opportunity to reconnect with a lot of people. Is it fair to blame the tool if we don’t teach ourselves how to use it? It’s like saying it’s the hammer’s fault my thumb is smashed. Please, please let’s take responsibility for our own actions, and that includes educating ourselves about any environment in which we live part of our lives. I’m a daily Facebook user. If I have concerns about my info, it doesn’t go there, plain and simple.

5. “It seems to fall on deaf ears.” You say that like it’s a bad thing. LOL. I vote we stop using this phrase, at least in print. 😉
   Some people simply have to learn it on their own.
   We work so hard to maintain personal security online, protection from hackers and such… Who other than @wilw can you trust? 😉

6. This thing you're arguing for drives me crazy. It's just like the idea that if you have nothing to hide, you should't want, expect, or care about privacy. I completely reject the suggestion that INTERNET = public space. Just to pick one example: Does this mean your online banking is public, or is it reasonable to expect privacy and security when you conduct financial transactions online? What about medical records? What about phone calls and instant messages? The list goes on and on, but I think you see my point.
   Nearly everything we do in our lives involves some sort of online transaction or interaction; of course we should expect our privacy to be protected and respected, and controlled by *us* instead of a corporation that serves its advertisers or shareholders. That article I linked at Newsweek observes that facebook users aren't its *customers*, they are its *inventory*.

7. I use Facebook myself simply as a social media outlet for keeping up with friends and the occasional local events. However I find it so ironic that so many friends play FB games day and night and still look at me with some ire when I spend a few hours gaming or simply reading. If doctors are saying we as gamers can be “addicted”, when will we start calling facebookers “App-addicts”? 🙂

8. hey Wil u should go and look at the comments on facebook about the whole asking for money this. theirs a lot of people that no better and are defending Ur Honor

9. Sorry if I’m being a dick, but you’re using a strawman argument when you say “Oh well, enjoy your lack of privacy while they ‘don’t’ sell your personal info to the highest bidder.” Amberwb never claimed that Facebook didn’t do that. In fact, she hinted at it when she said “I’m not disagreeing with you that their privacy policy is reprehensible, and that they’re doin’ it wrong.” Leave the strawmen to the Wizard of Oz.

10. Agreed. Strawmen and ad-hominem attacks make me stabby.

11. I do see your point, but I think your misunderstanding mine.
    The point I was replying to Rick on is that some information, that has always been public (ownership records, etc) has become easier to access. That was the original intent.
    The point I was making in my reply to your blog entry above was that I never expected a non-SSL website to be secure. If you’re putting clear text on the Internet, you must assume it is compromised. I don’t care if it is your personal email or http://facebook.com, if it is clear, someone can read it. Internet users need to know that.
    Yes, I’d love a service like Disapora. I’d also like for all of those people I sent a HOWTO on creating their own PGP keys back in 1996 to get back to me.
    I’m on your side on the fact that people don’t take efforts to make their private information private.
    However, I fail to understand why a Facebook status update is move evil than a Twitter status update.

12. "The point I was making in my reply to your blog entry above was that I never expected a non-SSL website to be secure. If you're putting clear text on the Internet, you must assume it is compromised. I don't care if it is your personal email or http://facebook.com, if it is clear, someone can read it. Internet users need to know that."
    I think you're technically right, but that argument about MIM attacks and the inherent insecurity of cleartext sniffing isn't what this post was about. This post was about Facebook, as a corporation, not caring about protecting its users' privacy, and making it incredibly difficult and overly-complicated for its users to take care of it on their own.
    "However, I fail to understand why a Facebook status update is move evil than a Twitter status update."
    I don't think it is. But to continue the Twitter comparison: A makes a Twitter update about C that is private, and shows it to B, who A has approved. For one reason or another, B follows C (it's a crazy alphabet, man) and Twitter makes the decision to expand A's protected updates to "friends of friends", meaning that C gets to see A's updates. Twitter would probably say, "we're thinking of doing this. Would you like to allow it? Y/N?" The Facebook way of doing this is to do it, tell A after it's been done and A's private updates have been compromised, and then force A to take a dozen or more steps to put things back the way they were. I could be wrong about Twitter's way of doing that, but Twitter, unlike Facebook, has currently earned my trust and the benefit of the doubt; Facebook has not, and probably never will.

13. Naivety is an autosomal recessive trait in my family, I thought for sure my sister would flee from Facebook when I politely asked her not to post a few photos of my family that I wasn’t comfortable sharing with the World. Instead, she blocked me and forgot to invite me to the Memorial Day family BBQ.
    Deaf ears or not, some people have selective understanding.
    I continue to use FB, there are a few things I enjoy sharing with the World, IE: my art, my passion for good will and helping others, my addiction to “Leverage” 😀

14. To be more clear, I’m not even talking about MIM and sniffing. The Internet IS a public space, and you have to guard against it as such. I trust my bank, so I trust them to protect my information against the Internet.
    You don’t trust Facebook, nor do I. However, let’s say you trust Twitter. Even if they are of the highest moral fiber, it is possible for them to screw up. See the bug a few weeks ago and all the tuna-heads that you started “following”. What if they screwed up again and every DM you sent were made public?
    Just like LeVar Burton learned about putting his private phone in what he thought was a DM, everyone needs to expect that non-encrypted information is at risk from everything from advanced attacks, selling to “The Man”, Ruby on Rails screwups, and simple user error.

15. Wow, hot topic.
    The page has been listed as a fan page (seen by the like button) as mentioned but done and built in such a way to present as a personal page to work around issues with that.
    I have actually learned some interesting stuff particularly in Wil’s post regarding settings and policys.
    Interesting reading here as always a shame what caused it.
    On a happier note Wil I have loved your recent photo’s from the Con and the look of childhood Glee in your eyes in some seems to scream “BEST FEELING EVER”.

16. I really don’t feel like jumping into the facebook and privacy arguments today. Way too heavy for me right now. (Though I am knowledgeable about the subject.) But I wanted to throw out a link for the “nicer” fan page that tries to be very clear about what it is.
    http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/pages/Wil-Wheaton/346898470248?ref=ts
    Funny thing though, even though they try to be really straightforward about it being a fan run page, people still constantly put comments on there addressed to Wil.
    There are actually a number of actors who have pages that are clearly run in their names by the same front soliciting donations. It really irritates me. I hated having to “unfan” “Nathan Fillion” because of this. It’s so disingenuous and prays off people, even if it does get used for a good cause, It’s not right.

17. The reclaim privacy tool is really quite excellent. I highly recommend it to anyone who uses Facebook and doesn’t want to leave (yet).

18. It was meant as a sarcastic remark, not a strawman argument. I apologize, I was the one being a dick, not you.

19. I have a friend who was fired for her job simply because of the photos on her facebook – none of which were bad (not like my brother, who had a picture of him doing a kegstand as his myspace profile pic for months). She was just called “unprofessional” and dropped, because of a non-professional site. And that’s scary for me.
    Apart from this…. god Facebook is so addictive… it’s really terrible, but none of my friends and family understand or will use Twitter, or else I’d use that more.

20. hmm…. seriously considering deleting my facebook now….
    ~Thanks again for your brain thoughts, Wil!

21. If you scroll to the bottom of the Facebook page there is a “report page” button. I’ve clicked it. Hopefully others reading this have as well.

22. Something no one’s mentioned here is a change FB made a couple months ago (which would match up with when it looks like this page started). Out of the blue, any text you have in your “Likes” on the Info tab was suddenly a page. If there had been no page previously, one was created. I don’t know how the admins were picked for that (maybe just the first user who got added to it during the conversion? No idea). That’s what it looks like this might be. As such there wouldn’t really be anything to mark it as a fan page unless the people who had access to it dressed it up, and I really haven’t seen any of the ones that were automatically added by my profile being used either, any more than this one is.
    Just a theory.

23. I don’t particularly understand Facebook fear. If you don’t want people to see that information, don’t put it up in the first place.
    Just sayin’

24. “I’m alarmed that Facebook is training an entire generation that personal privacy isn’t as important as it truly is.”
    I think personal privacy is very important. But I also think – and I’m having trouble figuring out how to express this – that there’s going to be a huge shift in what ‘personal privacy’ means, and what’s acceptable to have available to the public and what’s not. How detrimental is it going to be to have pictures up on online of that crazy party you went to, if the entire generation is in the exact same boat? And, well, yeah, I don’t want a lot of personal information out there for the world to see, and I try to keep private info private, but I still think how we view privacy at all is going to change.

25. If only there were better alternatives. Ning is going to start charging to maintain networks, Myspace sucks now….I keep hearing about Diaspora, but the promo ‘interviewy’ video those kids released was so laughably horrible that I can’t even take it seriously at this point.

26. If only it were so simple. With FB it’s not, though; they’ve made deals with companies in the past that have wound up putting video rentals, book purchases, etc., on people’s walls automatically, without their express permission ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Beacon ). So it’s not just what you put on FB, it’s what you do anywhere on the web that could conceivably be shared with your FB friends if FB makes a deal with that company. That’s what people keep missing. Thinking that you’ll be safe by just being careful about what you put on FB ignores their history of pulling in your web activity from other sites. It’s possible, after the class action lawsuits, that they will be more careful about how they do it in the future — but I guarantee you they haven’t changed their tune and decided to respect privacy, they’re just trying to find ways to continue on their quest without tripping as many alarms next time.
    I’m hardly anti-social media. I spend way too much time on Twitter, and LiveJournal, and any number of other sites. It’s just FB that seems to be pursuing “Be Evil” as their corporate motto. Other sites have made mistakes, accidentally shared info they shouldn’t, or even tried to implement something that would be invasive and then backed down on it when they realized how much people disliked it. The Newsweek quote in Wil’s post is correct, I’ve been watching: every time they step in shit, they try and try to convince people that “It’s in your own best interest!” and “You just don’t understand how good this is for you” before they finally back off — a little, and grudgingly. (Edit to clarify: Other companies make mistakes, but they realize they are and admit it. FB insists it’s for your own good.”)

27. You’re absolutely correct about that phrase, and I should know better. My apologies, and thanks for the gentle reminder. 🙂

28. Facebook can suck it. I deleted my account before Quit Facebook Day in part because of their abhorrent behavior in regards to privacy, but also because it’s becoming more and more “AOL 2.0.” As I said in my blog (http://www.goblin-cartoons.com/2010/05/12/facing-down-facebook/), I don’t want a centralized web experience for people. I don’t want the web dumbed down for people, I want people to smart up for the web. We already have the tools that make Facebook unnecessary, we just need to teach more people to use them.

29. I still do not understand the popularity of Facebook. Have these people no brains at all? For years, we’ve been told how idiotic and dangerous it is to put ANY private information online, to use one’s real name and identifiers online, to post anything that could connect one’s real life with one’s online identity. For YEARS. Then along comes this company with its cutesy “find your friends!” bullshit, and half the damn population lose their minds and start spilling every detail of their private lives – WITH NAMES – onto the internet. Then of course came the horror stories of how SURPRISE SURPRISE this stupid behavior started coming back to bite everybody on the ass. What the hell? I mean, what kind of UTTER. FREAKING. MORON. does this? And how naive do you have to be to NOT know it’s going to backfire on you?
    I’ve had a great time laughing at the idiots who use that “service”. That lack of plain ol’ brains is perpetually astounding.

30. The privacy thing is generational. In 2003 I taught a couple college Comp I classes and one of the argumentative papers was a debate over privacy. The hard thing for me was trying to convince them that there were actually valid privacy-advocate arguments out there. We’d read articles with privacy horror stories and they’d say “really that isn’t a big deal” and “why not trade privacy for safety” and “who cares”. All the papers I got back took the opposite side from privacy advocates.
    I (I’m 31 btw) remember taking Comp I when I was in school, and everything was quite opposite. Most folks were privacy advocates and wrote papers accordingly.

31. “Just don’t put anything on the internet that you don’t want to be public, it’s plain and simple!”
    It’s a plain and simple oversimplification. I bet many of you who say this are hypocrites. Why? Because you’re so comfortable with the internet AND you are confident you are safe. Therefore, you likely have info on the net that you don’t want to be public.
    When people feel comfortable and safe, they get sloppy. They talk a little too much; they give up information without even knowing they are doing so. Con-men know this. They make much of their living taking advantage of people like you.
    It’s easy to say, but hard to “live” on the internet without giving up more information than you want to.
    http://whoozy.com/ is an interesting place to find out how much the internets can know about you.

32. I’m additionally stunned by the argument, “We’ll I know FB is evil and stuff, but it’s where I connect with friends and family, so I’m stuck.”
    Now that you’ve found all your friends and family: Find another place. There are many on these internets that allow you to connect with your friends and family that are more secure and less obviously evil than FB.
    If nothing else, you can start a blog and invite all your friends and family and make it private. That you can keep up with each other in the comments section of the weekly info blog.
    But there are obviously better places, like Ning was before its plans to charge. They’re out there. And they’re not any more difficult than FB to figure out (for your less tech-savvy friends and family).
    Do it. If you really hate FB, you’ll be happier.

33. I’m a dog? Who said I was a dog? Listen pal, you’re barking up the wrong tree. You just bury that gossip in the yard. Throw me a bone, man. Woof…DAMMIT!

34. I don’t use any FB apps or games. I use it just to connect with my friends. I don’t know how much of my information is made available when all I do is post, but I also don’t post anything I don’t want people knowing.

35. Idiotic spelling comment: you misspelled “Diaspora” in the link to its website (the link is correct though)

36. I use facebook mainly for status updates, keeping in touch with people, things like that. Occasionally once in a while I will get sucked into a game but I mostly don’t deal with any 3rd party apps on there. I did when I first got a facebook but then I got tired of “your friend found a potato” or something or another in whatever game they were playing and I then blocked all games they played from my page, deleted most of the games I had ever played, and revoked access to apps I had previously allowed. If you try and limit what you let access to, I think it could be manageable. People also give this argument about Google, but I am a Google fan whore and will not give up my gmail, or calendar, or gatlk, or my MyTouch phone, I just refuse lol!

37. Never used facebook, never will. I agree with many people here who said: “if you want to keep your privacy, don’t put private stuff on it.” I often read about those people who put nude/semi-nude pictures on FB for the whole world to see, and who, after, complain that their picture is on a sex-site and that everyone can see it….Is it just me or these people are a bit…”slow”?
    I read all these “it’s the only way i have to keep in touch with friends and family”, and, a question: how did you all communicated before facebook? I think it’s very sad that people rely on something like facebook to have “friends”. Letters? Phone calls? E-mails? Were did those go?

38. Apology happily accepted.

39. Funny you should mention it.
    I’m writing this comment through my dog’s facebook page. It’s pretty barebones, but so is my own. I don’t really use facebook.
    A few years back, I read that Facebook wa improving security to get rid of sham accounts so I immediately dreated one for him. It’s been up for a year or more and nobody seems to notice.

40. Remember Wheaton’s Law, dude.
    As far as I’m concerned, I don’t see facebook as any more evil than a blog, though Wil Wheaton does make a valid point that they care not one iota for one’s privacy. However, if one values one’s privacy, one wouldn’t have a blog or a twitter in the first place.

41. I read all these “it’s the only way i have to keep in touch with friends and family”, and, a question: how did you all communicated before facebook? I think it’s very sad that people rely on something like facebook to have “friends”. Letters? Phone calls? E-mails? Were did those go?

    Well, I honestly wouldn’t have found any old friends from high school without Facebook. I wouldn’t know their street address, phone number, or email address. Facebook allowed me to find other people easily. This, of course, brings up Wil Wheaton’s argument about privacy. But what about the opposite side of the coin: what if you do want people to find you?

42. So let me get this straight: You’re dismissing Diaspora because their developers are *shocker* not telegenic? I suggest you put stock in the ideas and the value of the finished product rather than on their amateurish promo video.
    Sorry if I’m being a bit of a dick, though.

43. Hah – I used my Facebook login to sign in and leave a comment, because I can’t remember what email I used to sign up for TypePad. I’m not really that concerned about Facebook’s privacy policies, or with them selling my information. The only information I have on my FB profile is my age, my location, and what schools I went to, so that people I know can find me. I don’t really consider that to be particularly valuable information, particularly since I only really use Facebook to send the odd message to old high school friends (or organize nights out with my current friends) – I don’t really have any other useful demographic activity on there for FB to sell.

44. All the things you said, plus, I found it just to be a lame time-stealer and reclaimed a bunch of my time when I deleted the account (time spent mostly clicking “ignore” on the ENDLESS invitations to games). Did I lose touch with people? Sure the ones who friended me because they remembered me from highschool, yet we never spoke directly *to* each other on there anyway. I’m starting to think people have forgotten what “keeping in touch” actually means. I still use email and the phone for those who matter to me. Sometimes? I even send postal mail. I know, I’m a luddite, right. 😀

45. THIS. A few years ago, I found a couple sites that had my name and place of employment _with_ phone number! This was information that *I* hadn’t chosen to make public, but somewhere, someone else *did*. You know? Like, people are all “if you don’t want it known, don’t put it on the web” except *I didn’t* put it on the web myself. Somewhere along the line, that information was just freely handed over by a third party. That’s just dispicable, IMO.

46. I live a super public life on the internet. When I was younger, I used psuedonyms, and did a crapton of idiotic crap. Then, I got married, got a job, and learned that some things are private. However, I don’t say anything in real life that I wouldn’t say online, and vice versa. I have an old LJ that I keep friendslocked, but that’s only because other people commented on it previously when it was locked.
    My blog is public. My Google profiles are public. My twitter is public.
    I keep my Facebook a little more locked up for my family’s sake, but that’s about it. They know I keep things open. We’ve all learned to keep things off the internet that we don’t want put out – but today, even saying things to another person you know isn’t private any more. They could put it on the internet. People take photos without permission. It’s a mess!
    My Grandma can look at my photos on Facebook even when I don’t see her for weeks at a time because I have too busy a schedule. That’s awesome to me.
    I use Facebook to keep in touch with family and friends – some of which with we don’t have enough to share to e-mail about, some of which are far away and don’t have the greatest phone contact, etc. Sometimes, I just use it to Facebook “stalk” people I knew a long time ago but don’t really interact with – I know what’s happening to them, they know what’s happening to me, but we don’t really have to interact. Passive social networking works for me. It’s no different than me reading your blog and not commenting or commenting and you never replying.
    I have no idea what Diaspora is (and can’t seem to open the page). I know that getting my entire family and all of my friends to transfer to a totally new service would take a very, very long time, and I like having that communal contact with them.
    tl;dr I get the evils of Facebook, but I find the rest of the internet to be about as evil. The way I see it, if I keep most of my stuff public, and don’t share the private stuff with anyone except those I really trust (and only really offline), there’s not much of a problem.

47. Wil, I’m grateful for your post about Facebook, but I was wondering which of the other big internet companies should we be staying away from?

48. Instead of deleting my Facebook page, I try not to use it too often. I keep it around to keep track of friends that I grew up with. I rarely update my status there, hardly ever post new photos and don’t participate in any of the games, apps and other money generating schemes that Facebook tends to push.
    As for your lack of absence there, I applaud you on your not wanting to be out there. Your blog here and your Twitter account are perfect places to update your statuses and keep us fans entertained with your wit and insight, plus your w00tstock, classic arcade visits and acting role updates.

49. Yeah, but FB is soooooooooooooooo much fun.

50. Richard Stallman echoes your sentiments:
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/andrewbrown/2010/may/14/facebook-not-your-friend
    By the way, did you know Sir Patrick Stewart aka ‘Baldy’ was knighted recently?

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