What’s this “we,” Kemosabe?
Posted By Ing on January 12, 2010
I came across an article on TechCrunch about the furor over Facebook’s privacy changes, and the title drew me in: OK You Luddites, Time to Chill Out on Facebook Over Privacy.
And since I’ve been one of the many complaining about Facebook’s push toward publicizing everyone’s information to everyone, I figured I’d give it a read.
THE GIST OF THE ARTICLE
TechCrunch says our collective privacy is already long gone, and there’s no point in fussing about it now.
And they have a good point.
They say privacy was raped long ago by the credit card companies and their partners in crime, the credit reporting bureaus. The analogy seems apt. Like virginity, it seems that general privacy is something we can’t get back once lost.
And (sad as it is) TechCrunch pegged me when they said very few will stop using Facebook simply because it has less privacy than it once did; I’d like to ditch the place, but what with one thing and another it seems necessary to me (for now) to stay.
You really would have to be a Luddite — literally live in a cave somewhere — to avoid having everything you do, everything you buy, everywhere you go tracked and stored in a database somewhere for someone to use in some moneymaking enterprise or other.
Much as I’d like to strike back against the all-encompassing avarice of this world, I’m afraid I just don’t have it in me.
Besides, even living in a cave wouldn’t work. If you ever left it, you’d still be tracked by the system to the exact extent that you interacted with the rest of society (say, if you visited the local library every once in a while to blog about what it’s like living in a cave).
WHEREIN BLOG ING AND TECHCRUNCH PART WAYS
Their closing argument:
The point is, we don’t really care about privacy anymore. And Facebook is just giving us exactly what we want.
Uh…no.
I realize TechCrunch is basically an opinion outlet, and they’re overstating their “yeah, so what, join the new century” case for effect. In fact, I wish I could make myself believe their whole article is tongue-in-cheek…but somehow I can’t.
So pardon me (and read along) while my inner idealist and English major both go stark, staring, raving mad.
First…
Their closing argument is an impossible generalization.
I don’t know about all the other people in their vast collective “we” — reality TV and the trend of internet activity indicate that I’m probably in the minority — but I do care about my privacy. As in KEEPING it. What little of it I can, anyway.
Second…
“We don’t really care” is a non sequitur.
“Nobody cares, we secretly like it that way, and it just doesn’t matter,” does not necessarily follow from “privacy is dead.”
And finally…
There’s a red herring here, too.
Don’t be thrown off the scent: some people being okay with less (or zero) privacy has nothing to do with whether lack of choice in our privacy levels is okay. We may already have lost most of our privacy, but does that mean we all actually want to lose more of it?
You want to parade every datum in your life like some street-corner information whore hoping someone will take your profile for a ride? You can if you want, I guess. Me, I’d rather not.
If privacy ever did matter — if even the idea of it matters — then it still matters, even if it’s dead in practical terms.
It is always a shame when someone writes in some kind of official position and defies the Laws of Argument. If more people understood those rules and over-worked fallacies that go with them, we’d probably ditched the two-party system by now and perhaps have a government that took some responsibility, not to mention assorted chair people and company boards that had to do the same. There I go ranting. That was a great post. It’s good to know that other people take up arms against misused argument.
R.
Glad you liked it. :) Yeah, I figure those fallacies are a bit like spam in that you’d think people would see right through them, but spurious argument and spam obviously work well enough in their own ways to keep the abusers cranking them out.
The inept logic in their closing argument is irritating enough, but combine that with the whole privacy issue, which really burns my bacon, and you’ve got the recipe for some English-major-ly insanity.
Very nice post!! There is a commercial on TV for ON-Star. It shows a car being stolen, and On-Star working with the police to recover it. After giving the location to the police, the cruiser spots the stolen vehicle, and On-Star sends a command to it to stop it from running. The car coasts to the side of the road, the thieves jump out, and the police give chase.
This commercial scares the hell out me. So, basically, I only have the illusion of having control of my vehicle. At any time, some one from ON-Star, or some doped up computer hacker, could shut my car down and strand me in the middle of no-where? And people actually want this? I’d rather have my car stolen!!!
I like my privacy. I want my private life kept private. Excellent post!!!
“Don’t be thrown off the scent: some people being okay with less (or zero) privacy has nothing to do with whether *lack of choice in our privacy levels* is okay.”
DING DING DING – folks, I do believe we have a winner.
I linked back here to your blog while going off on a little English-major-ly insanity of my own. Thanks for a wonderfully eloquent post.
Ing (or anybody!!), please come comment on this:
http://jetlib.com/news/2010/01/12/facebook-ceo-people-don’t-really-want-privacy-nowadays-anyway
I just did; this guy is so OFF BASE, my head is about to explode.
Peg, thanks for the comment. I like what you had to say about it on your blog. And thanks for the link.
Let’s celebrate; it’s Data Privacy Day!
http://datababe007.blogspot.com/2010/01/know-what-day-it-is-data-privacy-day.html
(got a few links there)
Anyone want to chip in on a big card for Mark Zuckerberg…? ;-)