I’m secretive. I don’t know if it’s my natural inclination
or did it evolve because I’m an only and didn’t have a confidence-sharing
sibling. Or am I secretive because, I moved to George School, a non-trusting
environment, when I was thirteen. Regardless of the reason, I keep my own counsel;
don’t share personal stuff with many people. I read my FB feed daily, it’s the
way I keep up with friends and family who don’t live close, but seldom post
personal information.
How is FB monetized? Nothing’s free but we don’t pay a fee
for our accounts. Of course there are the ads, targeted to our interests, but
what else? All those sites that wanna collect your personal information? What
do they do with it? Every time I clicked on something that asked if they could
collect additional information on me, I opted out.
Some of my FB friends were ballistic about the Cambridge Analytica
data breech, furious that it took Zuckerberg several days to respond. What
could he say beyond we fucked and propose new measures he hopes will work? The
uses and misuses of social media seem to expand exponentially each month. How
do you stay ahead of that curve? Whoopi’s solution one morning on The View was don’t click.
But it’s too
late. I was shocked to learn how much algorithms learn about us exclusively
from our “like” clicks. I didn’t click any likes on FB for several days after I
read that article. But what does stopping now accomplish? They’ve already
accrued too much information.
