Should Facebook have a Will Option

Having read about privacy settings and how death is handled on Facebook I can't help bit think that one day there will be a “will” feature on Facebook. Hearing the story about the girlfriend who was removed from her recently deceased boyfriend's Facebook or the wife who's husband died four days after being married and the family that blames her for his death makes me think, what would the deceased want?

Having a will option is a very morbid thought but may be a necessary one if Facebook truly becomes part of our society. Some people may want to keep their image and online persona private after they die and may want their accounts removed. Other may want to be remembered by friends and have the memorial option. Still other may not want anything to change and keep their profile the way it is with the identity that it has.

Then again having a will option may end up like many of the other features on Facebook and be completely ignored. It will be interesting to see how Facebook or social networking sites in general evolve and react to people's lives, and deaths.

Who is looking at you?

As we talked about privacy settings in Facebook and other social media, and looked at the data found in the Boyd and Hargittai article it became clear that the biggest concern for most Facebook users in the “youth” demographic was what their immediate peers and figures of authority thought of them rather than faceless corporations or the government. I am not sure what to make of this finding. I can understand why someone would not be too concerned over a company getting information from your profile since they are probably just trying to advertise to meet your needs, though hearing stories of companies taking upon themselves to announce to your friends your spending habits is a bit disheartening. But why would the government want to get your information? This question becomes more important with the recent bill that the government is trying to pass that would make wiretapping on the Internet easier. This means that emails, social network sites, and everything else on the Internet could be closely monitored. Even though this worries me I feel divided on the issue because on the one hand it is my personal information but then again it is my information that is already on the Internet. If the Internet is suppose to be the ideal free flow of information then the government just like anyone else has the right to that information. Regulating the Internet either to support government interference or to prevent it may end up being it's demise. I understand that the government may just be trying to help defend the nation but because it has used fear to get previous bills into law I feel a certain distrust of the government's actions. Of course if I have done nothing wrong then I have nothing to worry about and the government should be allowed to view my information, right? It will be interesting to see how the issue of government and corporate data collecting plays out especially with the advent of geotagging sites like Foursquare.

Collective Individualism

Reading about how sites like Myspace, LiveJournal, and now Facebook allow people the freedom to posts any aspect of their lives and share it with anyone who comes across their page made me think about the type of society that is forming. The United States is noted for being an individualistic society with an emphasis on personal space and private life. Yet as social media on the internet blurs the lines between personal and private lives it becomes harder to put a label on this new type of hybrid society. I believe it is a hybrid society because even though social networking has brought about a more collective mindset there are still many things that remain personal and somewhat private. This can be seen when people post pictures and stories that depict intimate aspects of their lives but fiddle with security settings so that only certain people can access the information. There is also an interesting dynamic with social networking sites where everyone is sharing information with everyone else yet there is a tendency to try and be an individual, seen most notably in Myspace with their different page layouts. As social networking becomes further integrated into people's lives it will be interesting to see how this tension between collective and individual plays out.

The Masses need a King

As we read more and more about the beginnings of various New Media I find it interesting how much of that media was originally suppose to be egalitarian. The Internet was originally open to anyone who could access it and there was little to no regulation of what could or could not be posted. Wiki's were a way for everyone to contribute what they know in order to create systems of vast information. Yet as these things gained mass appeal, the inherent democracy of the media transformed more into a hierarchy. I understand that sometimes things like cost require certain changes to be made, someone has to pay for the telephone/cable lines and servers that run the Internet, but why does cost imply regulation? Why can't information be hosted freely. Most of these things were created freely without the motivation of money. Even in the case of Wiki's where it does not seem like money was an issue, a hierarchy arose. Why does some information have to be more important? It could be that since the small groups that were first on this New Media thought alike and thus had no need for a hierarchy until the masses came in and started changing and not agreeing with everything. It's always interesting to see how the masses can change a medium.