Rettberg Chapter 3: Social Networks
I thought the most interesting thing in the chapter was the discussion of centralized vs. distributed networks. One of my problems with social networking has often been that so much of it is centralized in nature, at least most of the stuff that we see as “social networking.” We maybe have some freedom within the confines, but in a lot of these situations we are still under agreements with Facebook, MySpace, and even Twitter.
The Corporate Influence
Facebook Snatches User’s Vanity URL And Sells It To Harman International
The above is a recent article that shows the power in these social networks is not always the people. The commercial applications of social networking are huge, and wherever there’s money it’s hard to avoid an imbalance in power.
I think there is an element of freedom in having your own space on the Internet that is lost with these large social networking sites, but the centralized model does tend to make it easier for people to find each other. It’s still depressing to hear all these stories about people feeling they’ve been unjustly pushed around, though, especially when people put so much of themselves into sites like this. A suspended account can be quite the inconvenience. Also as pointed out by Joe Moubry discussing Facebook fine print, even beyond all this back and forth of money and power, these centralized networks can claim ownership of your content. I really don’t like giving up that kind of control, even of the general kinds of silly things one would probably use Facebook for. Granted, such fine print is probably there to cover Facebook from the confusing world of copyright more than anything, but it’s a little strange of giving up, in a way, ownership of your personal life to a company.
The Audience
It was also intriguing to read about just who is reading all this stuff anyway. Rettberg calls it the “invisible audience.” I think the first time I personally really realized the extent of what that meant was when two things happened at about the same time. The first thing was a complete stranger I met through a friend had seen something I’d done online, and the second was when my brother (who I had not told) did. Sometimes one wonders just who’s reading all this stuff anyway, but public does mean public. You can try to write for a certain audience, but in an open Internet the audience you get is not entirely under your control. There are lots of privacy settings that you can use, but for the most part I still think it’s legitimate to treat the Internet like a public space. There are too many ways to find things if a person simply tries. If you really want to be a creepy person, all you need is a little bit of information to start with and a Google search box. Have you ever tried Googling yourself?
And now this very post is out there, able to be found.
Okay, all you invisible guys are creeping me out.
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This entry was posted on January 25, 2012 at 11:21 am and is filed under Weblogs and Wikis. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.
Tags: #en3177, corporations, rettberg, social networking, strong ties, weak ties
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