Not only does danah boyd really know what she is talking about but she is a brilliant writer. I have been aware that there has been a lot of stuff going on about Facebook and to a lesser extent Google and the privacy of the information they collect. To be honest my daily news reading time has been fully taken up with anything that is vaguely connected to older people, the imminent collapse of the Euro and what has been happening at Roland Garos (The French Open).
Seeing that danah boyd had been writing about the privacy issue I thought I had better find out what has been happening. I am not going to even begin to try and explain since her blog posting does it a zillion times better than I could manage.
Ms boyd did mention that Pew has done research on this subject and came to the conclusion that the young are concerned about their privacy – more so than their parents. Where I do disagree with her is the explanation that the young “get it” more than older people. Of course there is some truth in that argument but I suspect another, more important factor, is a lot of 65+ do not make any information about themselves available online and hence don’t give a damn and also they have a few more important things to be worrying about.
What is fascinating to read is the different way that Google and Facebook have responded to all of the bad press. Even if you don’t feel personally involved in this argument it is an important one to follow. Dick Stroud
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