typo(s), tendency and text

This post has been around in the draft queue for quite some time now. I have been thinking a lot about this, and now concluded to opt out of facebook. I deleted my account a few minutes ago, and the deprecated MySpace-account followed right afterwards.

Map of my Facebook "universe" - by Porter Novelli Global

In a blogpost about rethorics and the use of language in social media, my DIKULT110 class mate Ingunn gets into something that also bothers me about the extensive use of social applications the way they are designed by new companies and corporations. As a person  and in private it is bad enough, if I open up a social network of a kind, let's say on Ning, and as soon as I have everything figured out, and people are using this to connect and share, the company announces staff cut-backs and introduces fees to formerly free services. At the same time users of commercial social applications such as facebook seem to claim ownership of "their" facebook, aka their facebook account and which friend connections and activities, fan site and group memberships they collect and care for. There seems to be a gap between how companies design and lay out their communication services, and how they are perceived. The following (norwegian dialogue that Ingunn overheard was particularly interesting:

(blablabla hva skal vi i helga, vorspiel, ut, gutter blablabla, lage avtale senere)
Jente1: “Har du Facebook?”
Jente2: “Ja, jeg har hatt Facebook i et år, du da?”
Jente 1: “Ja, jeg har Facebook. Men [jentenavn jeg ikke husker] har ikke Facebook. Det er skikkelig irriterende for da må hun alltid tekstes i tillegg når det er noe.”
Jente2: “Å ja, enig, det er teit. Hva skal du ha på deg i morgen da?”
(blablabla shoppe blablabla)

Ingunniverset - Bestemor er død – hoho

Basically, in this conversation two girls are talking about their planned activities. Then they talk about if and for how long they have "had facebook", and one of them points out that her friend doesn't, and always has to be sent SMS separately if something happens. And how irritating this is. The other girl agrees: "its stupid", she says.

What this dialogue shows to me is how excluding the streamlining to sole facebook communication can be. And how important it is for group communication and social interactions, because it solves the problem of web 2.0 communication that is distributed. (Jill Walker Rettberg: Blogging, Polity Press, Cambridge/Malden 2008, p. 61ff.) Not being able to have all their friends as nodes in their network, irritates the facebooked teen friends, where their one important friend does not have a facebook account.

If I think about loss of data and connections, I can identify four or five services which would make me loose a lot of connections and data I need or care for, personally. This is bad enough. If you think about the punishment for abuse of copyrighted material in the current development stages of the international ACTA treaty, it proposes a three-strike-program where the last strike is about depriving people of their internet access. Which effectively means, denying people, their families and friends communications, workfare and their social life. Such a punishment would have a great impact on the life of many people.

It is still a privilege to use modern means of communications which is not granted to everybody, much less equally granted. As Jill Walker Rettberg discusses in her book "Blogging" (Polity Press, Cambridge/Malden 2008, p.52ff.) the access to means of communication have changed with the internet from a mass media/license approach to a situation where many people can own or at least frequently access means of communication. Depending on many factors, if you produce and publish content that gets attention - in theory, everyone can be heard, listen in to others and engage in conversation. My question is: How much control do people have over their communication when it gets more and more dependant on big networks that offer their services without a fee but also almost without any guarantees. People seem to have the need, will, skillset to come together in that way, but what if they suddenly find themselves cast out? What consequences does it have to be left out, to lose your photos, contacts and group memberships? Not to be invited to events?

The closedness of facebook towards users without profiles, business models which suddenly change, political changes... All those can affect if and how you can access, edit your own or other peoples social contributions or life logging. Peter Scoble found the following approach to this problem, where he himself uses other services than facebook who he thinks are dealing better with his data. And he hosts services himself where he can.

Truth is it doesn’t matter.

If you are uploading your content to, and participating online with, you are giving a HUGE amount of ownership to services that, well, you really don’t control.

They can go out of business. They can delete your account. They can make money off of your content. They probably all have wacky stuff in their terms of services.

This is true for Flickr. For YouTube. For Twitter. For Facebook. For all of them.

I’ve been yelling and screaming about how Facebook has been treating its customers for a year now. Facebook already showed how they treat you by the way they delete accounts: they have complete control and you have none.

While this might help him in his particular case, with his particular focus and time budget as well as skill set, this approach might not be viable for a lot of other people. I follow this approach as well, but see its limitations. Many people don't even realize that "their facebook" isn't even theirs, as shown above in the conversation of the two girls trying to plan their weekend with their aquaintances.

So I can merely ask questions:

What is your take on this? If you could have anything you wanted, how would communication and interaction work?