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OK, I don't get it
Sep. 2nd, 2010 01:20 pmI know that it's fashionable to be outraged about whatever the most recent change is on whatever your current social media site is, but ... I'm having a hard time grasping what's supposed to be so evil about the current Live Journal enhancements. So we have two new thingies: the ability to be notified when someone else links to an entry of yours; and the ability to propagate your own writings on LJ to your accounts on other social media sites. Both of these thingies have been set up as opt-in, not opt-out (which latter seems to be one of the things that gets people's back up on FB).
Where is the down side to being able to know when you are being linked to elsewhere on LJ? This seems to be a useful tool for monitoring or protecting your public "face". Furthermore, like the "who's looking at my journal" function, it's set up to require symmetry. Just as you can't monitor your journal viewers without allowing other to monitor your presence, you can't monitor links without allowing your links to be monitored. That very symmetry discourages the worst sorts of abuses.
With regard to propagation elsewhere, this has, of course, always been an available option. It takes very few keyboard/mouse actions to cut and paste your postings or your comments from one account to another. The new FB feature simply cuts down on the number of clicks required to do so. But similar options have already been available from different angles. When I set up my FB account, one of the apps I found over there and considered (before deciding against it) was one that would automatically propagate my LJ postings into my FB account. I know a number of people on my LJ reading list have automatic Twitter dumps into their LJ account. This is not some new radical thing that LJ has invented to mess with people. Furthermore, since you have to explicitly tell LJ what your FB account & password is (and presumably similarly for Twitter etc.)it's not as if this is a feature that could be enforced against your will in any event.
I understand that there are people who like to keep a clear firewall between their identities on LJ and FB (and real life and who knows where else). These people clearly should simply NOT SET UP THE FEATURE. And, yeah, maybe it's possible that someone else's propagation of content between their own accounts on different sites will provide enough contextual clues that a highly motivated person can figure out other people's linked identities on those same sites.
Welcome to the angst-ridden world of trying to maintain multiple closeted identities. There's a reason why gays have worked so hard to eliminate the negative consequences of being out. Closets suck and they involve a lot of work (and all too often, not a little dishonesty) to maintain. I sympathize -- really I do. But the moment someone creates an identity whose functionality relies on it not being linked to their other identities, they've created this hazard.
The hazard does not come from Live Journal. The hazard does not come from Facebook. The hazard cannot be escaped by moving to DreamWidth. The hazard exists because it is not other people's job to keep track of which of their friends' identities aren't supposed to know about which other of their friends' identities. And eventually someone of good will and innocuous intent is going to slip up. Just like eventually you and your closeted girlfriend were going to bump into her curious cousin in the grocery store. And that doesn't take into account the people of not-entirely-good will or of mis-directed intent or even the outright muck-stirers.
I'm not saying that there aren't social media companies who prioritize monetization over subscriber happiness. And I acknowledge that the nature of online social media vastly increase the scope and speed with which identity-firewalls can be demolished (compared to face-to-face interactions). But I do think that before people start ranting and raving about the particular actions of particular social media sites, they need to consider what percentage of the problem is created by the site and what percentage was a pre-existing risk of living in human society.
Where is the down side to being able to know when you are being linked to elsewhere on LJ? This seems to be a useful tool for monitoring or protecting your public "face". Furthermore, like the "who's looking at my journal" function, it's set up to require symmetry. Just as you can't monitor your journal viewers without allowing other to monitor your presence, you can't monitor links without allowing your links to be monitored. That very symmetry discourages the worst sorts of abuses.
With regard to propagation elsewhere, this has, of course, always been an available option. It takes very few keyboard/mouse actions to cut and paste your postings or your comments from one account to another. The new FB feature simply cuts down on the number of clicks required to do so. But similar options have already been available from different angles. When I set up my FB account, one of the apps I found over there and considered (before deciding against it) was one that would automatically propagate my LJ postings into my FB account. I know a number of people on my LJ reading list have automatic Twitter dumps into their LJ account. This is not some new radical thing that LJ has invented to mess with people. Furthermore, since you have to explicitly tell LJ what your FB account & password is (and presumably similarly for Twitter etc.)it's not as if this is a feature that could be enforced against your will in any event.
I understand that there are people who like to keep a clear firewall between their identities on LJ and FB (and real life and who knows where else). These people clearly should simply NOT SET UP THE FEATURE. And, yeah, maybe it's possible that someone else's propagation of content between their own accounts on different sites will provide enough contextual clues that a highly motivated person can figure out other people's linked identities on those same sites.
Welcome to the angst-ridden world of trying to maintain multiple closeted identities. There's a reason why gays have worked so hard to eliminate the negative consequences of being out. Closets suck and they involve a lot of work (and all too often, not a little dishonesty) to maintain. I sympathize -- really I do. But the moment someone creates an identity whose functionality relies on it not being linked to their other identities, they've created this hazard.
The hazard does not come from Live Journal. The hazard does not come from Facebook. The hazard cannot be escaped by moving to DreamWidth. The hazard exists because it is not other people's job to keep track of which of their friends' identities aren't supposed to know about which other of their friends' identities. And eventually someone of good will and innocuous intent is going to slip up. Just like eventually you and your closeted girlfriend were going to bump into her curious cousin in the grocery store. And that doesn't take into account the people of not-entirely-good will or of mis-directed intent or even the outright muck-stirers.
I'm not saying that there aren't social media companies who prioritize monetization over subscriber happiness. And I acknowledge that the nature of online social media vastly increase the scope and speed with which identity-firewalls can be demolished (compared to face-to-face interactions). But I do think that before people start ranting and raving about the particular actions of particular social media sites, they need to consider what percentage of the problem is created by the site and what percentage was a pre-existing risk of living in human society.
