Facebook Moves Beyond the Pale

The expression "beyond the pale" has to do with boundaries, as in out of bounds, off the reservation, beyond our control, over the edge, et al. One of the reasons Facebook seemed fun and interesting initially is that it had boundaries. Users could relatively easily control what they saw and what others saw of their cyber-lives.

In a recent move, the powers that be at FB have made two grave errors in judgment. What it will mean remains to be seen, but the changes have to be viewed as wrong and wrong by anyone who values boundaries of any kind. (Yes, for to some of my friends this seems an odd stance for me to take. Let's just say Facebook raised my boundary consciousness.)

First, they have decided to index all content for search engines in order to drive page view traffic. All content they have access to, that is. And they are working hard to make sure that is a great deal of content.

Second, in a supposed move to make privacy better, default settings have been changed so that unless one is careful, everything in a profile, album, listing or page is available to everyone in the world.

This does not even take into account the recent third party astroturfing, where health insurers' trade groups offered gaming cash, for games like Mafia Wars and FarmVille, in exchange for a few clicks. These clicks eventually led to the gamers unwittingly lending their names to anti-health care reform letters. This is not a way to warm the cockles of my heart.

I am deleting my long inactive account tonight.

Globe Updates Boothbay Wave Story

Gee, it's great when media outlets call around, take pictures, talk to experts and interview witnesses. See for yourself.
Jeesh.
My favorite quotations:

The cause of it is a mystery. But it's not mysterious that it happened.

National Weather Service meteorologist John Jensenius [charter member of the Master of the Bloody Obvious Club]

It felt like somebody took the plug out somewhere. It felt like there must have been water missing in the ocean someplace.

McSeagull's waitress Elena Smith

An Ad You'll Never See on the TeeVee

Can't resist posting this for those who aren't Josh Marshall addicts like me.

It's Not Right

Whether the latest news about Blethen possibly closing the Portland Press Herald, the Waterville Sentinel and the KJ are some kind of threat designed to make Bill Cohen et al cough up a little more cash for the alleged newspaper deal is hard to tell. In any case it would be a hell of a note for nearly half the state to be without a daily newspaper.

Granted the Press Herald, like many papers these days is a newsletter compared to its former robust, if not exactly newsy, self, so losing it is hardly the disaster it once might have been. Nevertheless, the loss of all three would be really jarring, especially for the people who work there, not to mention several I know there and a few I've worked with at other papers.

That a paper like the Washington Times can go on hiring idiot columnists and selling ads at a loss makes the evaporation of these three regionals all the more criminal. I am embarrassed to say I didn't know until about a month ago that Sun Myung Moon ran the WT at a loss. I knew he owned it and I knew people on Fox News and shrieking hate-filled AM talk radio were the only people who ever quoted its writers, but I had no idea it had never, that's right, never, ever turned a profit until I saw Jeff Gorenfeld on C-SPAN. His book Bad Moon Rising, which apparently gives a comprehensive history of Moon and his influence--including jaunts with the Presidents Bush. Gorenfeld's abbreviated tale for the teevee was horrid enough for now. I'd like to read the book after W's out of office.

Well, actually that makes the WT a newsletter. Yes, the PPH has struggled to keep its page numbers up, but that the Washington Times has never come close to paying its own way is a definite sign of flak, PR and spin. Hell, even The Nation is in the black, if only barely. The WT has lost billions, that's billions of dollars since its inception in 1982. If the arbiters of the free market would only come clean about their favorite print megaphone, the laughter would blot out the sun--umm, well you know what I mean.

Anyway, it's simply not fair that three papers serving decent people who need information may go tits up as the WT fishwrap of a rag continues to feed the poison spewing right wing echo chamber on the crazy Moony's tab.