It’s kinda like sex tapes? Meaning okay, you made one but you don’t want anyone to ever see it so you hide it. But just the fact that it exists puts it in danger of being seen eventually, right? So while I adore my privacy and think Zuckerberg is a huge dickhole, I think maybe we need to start treating the internet as a street rather than a room, where what you do/say/etc may be seen by passers-by, no matter how secret you think it is, and act appropriately.

Our privacy is only as strong as we make it, and if you give control of your privacy to someone else, no matter who they are or what you’re giving them, they won’t care for it as well as you would yourself.

In my case, I’m training to be a doctor. With real-life clients/patients. For me, it is a bad thing if potential or actual clients could access my Facebook. I, for example, like to have my profile set to me in various years’ Halloween costumes. That’s great for my friends to see, but could come off as less-than-professional to anyone who I’d be treating.

Alternatively, people can now see a list of all the pages that you belong to – no way to make that private. I used to belong to pages that endorsed political issues and social causes. What if someone I’m treating searches for me and disagrees with my politics? With my beliefs in causes, such as gay rights? Such a client may be less inclined to trust my professional opinions, as unrelated as they may be from my personal interests. Ergo, my ability to do my job is compromised. (Now, by the way, I no longer subscribe to ANY pages.)

I guess what I’m saying is that for people in my situation, the lack of privacy on Facebook makes it impossible to have a distinct personal life separate from my professional life. Unless, of course, I give a big screw you to Zuckerberg & Co. and drop Facebook. Which is fast becoming my only realistic option.

And I’ve paid for YEARS with LiveJournal.com to keep my private journal *private*, with filters, etc. I have absolutely NO PROBLEM paying to keep what is mine, mine, while using a free platform to host it.