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“A privacy watchdog has uncovered a government memo that encourages federal agents to befriend people on a variety of social networks, to take advantage of their readiness to share — and to spy on them. In response to a Freedom of Information request, the government released a handful of documents, including a May 2008 memo detailing how social-networking sites are exploited by the Office of Fraud Detection and National Security (FDNS).”
Read about it here: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/10/13/government-spying-social-networks/
Also, here is part of a wonderful piece by Roger Scruton from The New Atlantis, dealing with friendships on the screen:
“When attention is fixed on the other as mediated by the screen, however, there is a marked shift in emphasis. For a start, I have my finger on the button; at any moment I can turn the image off, or click to arrive at some new encounter. The other is free in his own space, but he is not really free in my space, over which I am the ultimate arbiter. I am not risking myself in the friendship to nearly the same extent as I risk myself when I meet the other face to face. Of course, the other may so grip my attention with his messages, images, and requests that I stay glued to the screen. Nevertheless, it is ultimately a screen that I am glued to, and not the face that I see in it. All interaction with the other is at a distance, and whether I am affected by it becomes to some extent a matter of my own choosing.
In this screenful form of conducting relationships, I enjoy a power over the other person of which he himself is not really aware — since he is not aware of how much I wish to retain him in the space before me. And the power I have over him he has too over me, just as I am denied the same freedom in his space that he is denied in mine. He, too, therefore, will not risk himself; he appears on the screen only on condition of retaining that ultimate control himself. This is something I know about him that he knows that I know — and vice versa. There grows between us a reduced-risk encounter, in which each is aware that the other is fundamentally withheld, sovereign within his impregnable cyber-castle.”
Here is the link to the rest of it: http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/hiding-behind-the-screen
“Facebook is like a refrigerator. You get bored and keep checking, but nothing ever changes.”(Well, except your privacy settings.)
Dear honorable members of the AFLI,
I would like to issue an apology for my apparent laziness of late as to the upkeep of this site. Be assured that it is not truly laziness that is keeping me from my duty to the AFLI. On the contrary, it is my business in that wondrous place known only to people like us. Yes, I refer to the REAL WORLD. Because I assume my readers have lives worth living, I hope they will have a little sympathy for my difficulty in finding time for matters of the web. As pressing matters in the R.W. lessen, I hope to find more time to post relevant updates as to Facebook’s rising assault on civilized folk. So be on the lookout; the AFLI is very much alive! Indeed, the AFLI celebrates its one year anniversary this very month!!! Long live the AFLI and its dedicated members!
Sincerely,
Savanna J. Buckner, President
