Elizabeth Chamberlain

Elizabeth Chamberlain

What better way to give you a sense of the conversations that fill the pages of this book than a series of Facebook statuses? It'd be impractical to summarize all 23 of this book's chapters, so I've picked chapters 1, 3, 6, 11, and 21 to share in status form—with, of course, some creative license. For the record, all posts below are my interpretation, not the original authors' words.

Skeptical baby

Facebook Skeptic

Better way? I can think of a few.


Elizabeth Chamberlain

Elizabeth Chamberlain

Oh yeah? Like what?


Skeptical baby

Facebook Skeptic

Email. Paper and pen. Stone tablet.


Elizabeth Chamberlain

Elizabeth Chamberlain

You sure spend a lot of time on Facebook for someone who hates it so much.


James Grimmelmann

James Grimmelmann

I keep hearing people say that kids these days don't care about privacy. What do you all think?

Skeptical baby

Facebook Skeptic

Privacy on Facebook is an oxymoron. People post way too many personal details.


Dan Leone

Dan Leone

Ever since I lost my job with the Philadelphia Eagles for complaining about a trade, I've really been careful about what I put on Facebook. I never friend anyone from work anymore.


Skeptical baby

Facebook Skeptic

No, see, that just proves my point, Dan. People only care about privacy when they learn their lesson the hard way.


James Grimmelmann

James Grimmelmann

I'm not so sure. Don't you remember all the people who protested when News Feed first started posting changes in relationship status and so on? People were very worried about privacy then. I think privacy is contextual. Facebook is a social context—of course people are going to share photos and personal details. Part of being friends with people is sharing things about yourself.


Skeptical baby

Facebook Skeptic

Yeah, but that social context lures people into thinking that it's a safe place to, say, complain about a company trade. When it feels like a party, you can forget that your boss is lurking in the room.


James Grimmelmann

James Grimmelmann

You know, I think you're right about that. By looking like a normal offline social context, Facebook recruits you into helping violate your friends' privacy, and vice versa.


Skeptical baby

Facebook Skeptic

Exactly. It's a privacy virus.


Ian Bogost

Ian Bogost

I was all excited about joining Facebook networks, but then I discovered something weird: Even though I have two degrees from UCLA, I can't sign up for the UCLA Facebook network because I don't have a UCLA.edu email address anymore.

Marshall McLuhan

Marshall McLuhan

Just as I predicted. Electric media are bringing back earlier forms of tribalism. But what media does Facebook enhance? Retrieve? Reverse into? Obsolesce?


Ian Bogost

Ian Bogost

Well, it definitely improves the directory. That's what "face book" used to mean, and that's what Facebook does really well. It's also like a public bulletin board—people post messages and images for the community. In status messages and wall posts, it can become more like a diary or yearbook.


College Friend

College Friend

Even though Facebook makes finding old friends easier (hi, Ian), I wonder if it makes us less likely to meet up with them in real life. Who needs a reunion when we already know who had kids and who's working for Microsoft and who got fat?


Ian Bogost

Ian Bogost

Yeah, it's like a 24/7 high school cafeteria right in the privacy of your home. But maybe it's also like some hang-out places of the past: the boulevard, the soda shop, the arcade.


Joi Ito

Joi Ito

It's a soda shop where everything is happening now. When I added my relationship status to my profile, it said, "Joi is now engaged" —even though I had been engaged for a long time. My friends all started congratulating me. Facebook collapses time, makes the past obsolete.


Mimi Marinucci

Mimi Marinucci

Why is Facebook the exception to the rule that people lose their inhibitions online?

John Suler

John Suler

People become disinhibited online for a bunch of reasons: the feeling of anonymity and invisibility, erasure of nonverbal cues due to asynchronicity, solipsism, dissociation, and flattening of hierarchy. Facebook doesn't do all those things.


Mimi Marinucci

Mimi Marinucci

True. Actually, I don't think Facebook does any of those things. It's tough to be anonymous or invisible on Facebook. Because News Feed updates all the time, it's not as asynchronous as other forms of communication. You usually know all the people you're communicating with in real life, so it's hard to pretend that they're just figments of your imagination. And anyone who's had a boss or a parent join Facebook knows it doesn't flatten hierarchies...


Skeptical baby

Facebook Skeptic

That's exactly why Facebook is full of fake, inauthentic communication. People's real thoughts are inhibited.


Mimi Marinucci

Mimi Marinucci

Skeptic, I disagree. I think it forces us to reconcile the various incarnations of our identity, which means maybe it's more authentic than any other communication. On Facebook, I must be the same person with all my friends as I would be with any one of them.


Matthew Tedesco

Matthew Tedesco

Reading Aristotle, I'm struck by how true his description of friendship still seems. Two thousand years later, and we all still agree: friendship is good.

William Godwin

William Godwin

Hang on a minute. Not so fast. Think through this with me: Imagine that the palace of Fenelon, the archbishop of Cambrai, is in flames.


Matthew Tedesco

Matthew Tedesco

Sure. I imagine that all the time.


William Godwin

William Godwin

The fire is going to kill both the archbishop and his valet. If you only have time to save one of them, who should you choose?


Matthew Tedesco

Matthew Tedesco

Clearly the archbishop. His death would be a great loss to the community.


William Godwin

William Godwin

Now imagine that the valet is your brother, or your father, or a friend. Does that change your mind?


Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham

It shouldn't. Impartiality is the most important quality of utilitarian morality.


John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill

Yes, but it only really matters for people who are in the privileged position to be public benefactors.


Bernard Williams

Bernard Williams

What? Only someone laughably cold and calculating would pause long enough to deliberate in that situation. It's one thought too many. Utilitarianism is alienating. Of course I'd save my friend.


Shelly Kagan

Shelly Kagan

Friendship is necessarily morally suspect. But we can make it better by using friendship as a form of teamwork, banding together to fight for the moral good.


Matthew Tedesco

Matthew Tedesco

Maybe this is all moot. I don't know if a Facebook friendship is even really a friendship at all. It's a friendship that makes no demands of us.


Trebor Scholz

Trebor Scholz

Does Facebook give us political power?

Tim O'Reilly

Tim O'Reilly

I think it would be better to say that by participating in Facebook, we give it power. We make it profitable for advertisers.


Eric Schmidt

Eric Schmidt

True, some people even do volunteer labor for us, translating Google sites for free. People have free time. Why shouldn't we take advantage of it?


Skeptical baby

Facebook Skeptic

Uh, that's creepy, Eric.


Trebor Scholz

Trebor Scholz

Definitely creepy. And in the meantime, we generate tons of data that Facebook can sell to advertisers. We are the brand. We're used and using each other.


Skeptical baby

Facebook Skeptic

I think the answer to your original question, Trebor, is "no."


Trebor Scholz

Trebor Scholz

Maybe. But there are some ways we can fight back, like Jack Toolin's "My Space for Your Life" project. I think we can cause some trouble in the playground/factory of Facebook.