DanielR's dashboard

Considering I work an at agency and we use them from time to time, such a response from them puts a huge hesitation to ever recommend them to a client or another agency.

Jen F:

1. I believe that it is a federal offense to use US Postal Service for criminal activity. I dont know where harassment falls into it, but if you do something illegal by using the US Postal Service, that's a federal crime.

2. On another level, if you harass someone from a community, which Twitter is, you should get banned. End of Story.

3. As a good community facilitator and honoring their TOS, they should honor it and abide by it.

4. What exactly does Twitter have to lose by banning this person? – DanielR, on May 22, 2008 22:54

Awesome, thanks! I'm reading up on it right now.

That's what I thought too, maybe this is a "user error", but after I copy and paste the code, I see the following in the source:
"<!-- javascript redacted -->
<!-- javascript redacted -->"

But, when I click back to edit, I still see the source code there. Am I missing something?

I think we need to divide two different issues:

1. Facebook Privacy Policy
2. Activists Need for Privacy

1. On "Facebook Privacy Policy"
I still contend that Facebook is not the only game in town and further more it is no even the biggest Social Network internationally. There is Bebo, Hi5 et al. Facebook is the web2.0 flavor of the month, just like before it was Friendster or MySpace.

If Facebook achieves marketshare dominance like Google internationally, then we need to worry. Until then, I say it will be very foolhardy for anyone who is privacy sensitive to be on Facebook and it's also easy to make up a name like "Jason Winfrey" instead of making it suspiciously fake like "Ceedub".

If we don't like facebook, let's go somewhere else. Activist can build their own service through open-source software like Pligg or using the Consumating platform.

It would be a tremendous folly for a privacy-sensitive activist to depend on a corporation to protect them. Yahoo in China is but one example.

2. On "Activists Need for Privacy"
If we're talking about privacy in general and its importance for dissidents, there are FAR bigger fish to fry than Facebook. EU has a data retention policy potentially allows everything from your gym membership to cable subscription be held in a giant EU Intelligence database. The data can be saved from 6 months to 2 years.

That's a real privacy issue. Facebook simply isnt.

Thanks for replying. Even a PDF of an Office2007 document wont work?

I did get it to finally work by uploading it as a 2003 PPT (not PDF).

Ariel,

I agree that Facebook's policy is silly, especially as there are real and valid reasons to conceal one's identity.

"Kicking someone out of your service is not like asking them to move to another town; there is only one internet for all of us to use."

With that I disagree, while there is "only one Internet", there are many social networks. We do not have to use Facebook. I'm aware that some people have shunned it for it's wall-garden policy, propriety language among other things.

Facebook is not forcing people off the street to disclose their names. It is a requirement for joining the service. Big Difference.

As for Google and the Violet Blue example, Google has become a defacto monopoly and public utility. It is in its own interest to look out and protect personal privacy, especially with its "do no evil" policy. Facebook is yet to be in that situation of being the dominating "social utility" to the same capacity Google is.