Cam Barrett knows the precise date of her first menstrual period. Her mother posted the news on Facebook. Barrett, who lives in Illinois, is part of a growing movement of young people who are urging lawmakers to protect children whose parents monetize their private lives on social media.
When social media got big and seemingly every parent out there needed to post publicly every single event/picture/milestone for their kids online, it felt weird. 20 years prior, no parent would willingly share personal information like that to strangers, but suddenly parents couldn’t help themselves.
It struck me that kids would have a very public accounting of their whole life, childhood and on, in a way that I didn’t, and it probably wouldn’t be a good thing.
People do this even today, too. I’ve somehow started getting videos of babies and toddlers recommended to me (I’m guessing various algorithms thinks it’s time for me to graduate from dogs and cats), and yeah, it’s cute as hell, but it would’ve still been cute had you not shared it and kept it private.
When I was a kid, my parents took photos, but they were just for the family. And they were usually only on special occasions and holidays. When I was a teenager, my parents took secret photos of me and the others to post on Facebook without our knowledge.
Now that I’m an adult, my parents aren’t allowed to see me at all. I hope those Facebook photos are worth more to them than a relationship with their kids.
I just can’t understand why they wouldn’t post private. We document things like birthdays and family trips on Facebook, but only to immediate friends and with no visibility to even friends of friends.
Also, I refuse to friend anyone I don’t actually have a personal relationship with. My wife is friends with most of her office, and that’s a big fucking nope from me.
Yeah, but it doesn’t matter because I’m not really that interesting at that level. Or possibly at any level.
Note: this is not saying it’s fine as long as you don’t do anything wrong. I’ve done some shit and I know they could know, but they don’t give a fuck so I feel safely anonymous, but that doesn’t mean I’m cool that they could know if they ever decided to care. Fuck, this is longer than my actual fucking joke.
You should watch The Social Dilemma on Netflix. It’s a very accessible explanation of how social media works by creating psychographic profiles to maximize engagement. It’s written and narrated by experts in their respective fields, many of whom created the systems that are now standard. It’s legitimately scary stuff. They’ve been using psychographic profile systems since 2010, so they’ve only gotten more advanced with time.
I will check it out. I’m already somewhat anti-personal-social-media. Lemmy and formerly Reddit where I can just say and be whoever I want with basically no identity is a different case. I get creeped out and stop posting any time I gain any sort of actual following, including abandoning Reddit identities every few years and starting fresh. I’m basically shit at social media, is what I’m saying, but I don’t care because I hate it, but also I need upvotes - PLEASE LOVE ME!
Anyway, yeah man, I’ll check it out. That actually does sound like something I would have interesting nightmares about.
Sorry if my humor missed, but fuck it, you don’t know me.
You’d think, but the lines are blurred all the time for some. No matter how chummy I am with someone at work, I really don’t want to be one angry post away from an HR incident.
Thankfully I’ve never run into that. But I think I’ve only made about two comments in the last five years and haven’t made a post in probably fifteen years.
I ignore the request and if they say something about it I just tell them I basically never go on it. Anything I post is private so from the outside it looks like an abandoned account. I hope.
It’s definitely a quandary some people can be put in. “Do I friend my boss on Facebook and watch what I say on Facebook or do I pretend I don’t use Facebook and never accept and watch what I say so they don’t know I use it or do I turn them down and tell them I don’t want to friend them on Facebook?”
When social media got big and seemingly every parent out there needed to post publicly every single event/picture/milestone for their kids online, it felt weird. 20 years prior, no parent would willingly share personal information like that to strangers, but suddenly parents couldn’t help themselves.
It struck me that kids would have a very public accounting of their whole life, childhood and on, in a way that I didn’t, and it probably wouldn’t be a good thing.
People do this even today, too. I’ve somehow started getting videos of babies and toddlers recommended to me (I’m guessing various algorithms thinks it’s time for me to graduate from dogs and cats), and yeah, it’s cute as hell, but it would’ve still been cute had you not shared it and kept it private.
When I was a kid, my parents took photos, but they were just for the family. And they were usually only on special occasions and holidays. When I was a teenager, my parents took secret photos of me and the others to post on Facebook without our knowledge.
Now that I’m an adult, my parents aren’t allowed to see me at all. I hope those Facebook photos are worth more to them than a relationship with their kids.
I just can’t understand why they wouldn’t post private. We document things like birthdays and family trips on Facebook, but only to immediate friends and with no visibility to even friends of friends.
Also, I refuse to friend anyone I don’t actually have a personal relationship with. My wife is friends with most of her office, and that’s a big fucking nope from me.
There’s no such thing as posting private. Meta and all of its partners, affiliates, and advertisers are always in the room.
Yeah, but it doesn’t matter because I’m not really that interesting at that level. Or possibly at any level.
Note: this is not saying it’s fine as long as you don’t do anything wrong. I’ve done some shit and I know they could know, but they don’t give a fuck so I feel safely anonymous, but that doesn’t mean I’m cool that they could know if they ever decided to care. Fuck, this is longer than my actual fucking joke.
You should watch The Social Dilemma on Netflix. It’s a very accessible explanation of how social media works by creating psychographic profiles to maximize engagement. It’s written and narrated by experts in their respective fields, many of whom created the systems that are now standard. It’s legitimately scary stuff. They’ve been using psychographic profile systems since 2010, so they’ve only gotten more advanced with time.
I will check it out. I’m already somewhat anti-personal-social-media. Lemmy and formerly Reddit where I can just say and be whoever I want with basically no identity is a different case. I get creeped out and stop posting any time I gain any sort of actual following, including abandoning Reddit identities every few years and starting fresh. I’m basically shit at social media, is what I’m saying, but I don’t care because I hate it, but also I need upvotes - PLEASE LOVE ME!
Anyway, yeah man, I’ll check it out. That actually does sound like something I would have interesting nightmares about.
Sorry if my humor missed, but fuck it, you don’t know me.
Do they know any better? Facebook users don’t strike me as the most technically savvy.
There’s also no such thing as posting private. Meta and all of its partners, affiliates, and advertisers are always in the room.
Agreed. I’ll just leave this link here to make it easier for anyone still on the fence:
Isn’t that what LinkedIn is for?
I’m not big on social media, but I have a pretty firm separation between Facebook friends and LinkedIn contacts.
You’d think, but the lines are blurred all the time for some. No matter how chummy I am with someone at work, I really don’t want to be one angry post away from an HR incident.
When your boss does something like friend you on Facebook, what the fuck are you supposed to do? Tell them no and get on their bad side?
Thankfully I’ve never run into that. But I think I’ve only made about two comments in the last five years and haven’t made a post in probably fifteen years.
I ignore the request and if they say something about it I just tell them I basically never go on it. Anything I post is private so from the outside it looks like an abandoned account. I hope.
Hopefully they never hear you talk about something you read while there.
In my case that’s not a problem, but I can see where that could be an issue.
It’s definitely a quandary some people can be put in. “Do I friend my boss on Facebook and watch what I say on Facebook or do I pretend I don’t use Facebook and never accept and watch what I say so they don’t know I use it or do I turn them down and tell them I don’t want to friend them on Facebook?”
You can put them in a restricted group that doesn’t really let them see anything.
Or at least you could, I haven’t really used Facebook in years.