Is Facebook benign, evil or indifferent?

[Minoosh]

One of those films where you hoped they would all meet a painful end.

It could still happen.

The movie Zuckerberg is portrayed as a sort of Asperger's guy and if you're not real tuned in to people's inner states the concept of embarrassment, for example, might be alien to you. He didn't seem to have boundaries between his private self and public self and I'm not sure he understand why some people do. I'm wondering whether people thought the Zuckerberg character was a sympathetic character. I thought he was - but not someone I'd trust with my secrets!

 

[Oliver]

So - no acknowledgement of the fact that they've actually fixed a lot of the security issues they had in the past?

What do you mean by "security issues"???

All of Facebook is MEANT to get as much private data as it can. [They actually own your data including pictures, clips, etc...] Why the heck do you think the whole thing is estimated to be worth 50 billions or even more?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/21/facebook-valued-at_n_812441.html

 

[Oliver]

I think it's just a big data mining operation that can cause people problems if they are not very careful about what they put out on Fb. I have an account, but I rarely post anything, and my profile is empty

Yep, same here. I signed up right when the whole thing started. But I never used any real name - nor did I use it beyond playing with its features.

 

[Minoosh]

Why the heck do you think the whole thing is estimated to be worth 50 billions or even more?

Mind-boggling to me but a great act of faith by those valuing it at $50B. I made a pretty good living off an advertising platform that eventually tanked but it was good while it lasted.

It's hard for me to get my head around the concept of WANTING advertisers to know this much about me. I'm still stuck with the paradigm of mass marketing.

I noticed after looking up "scrubs" and "tunics" that my browser offered up ads of clothes it thinks I might like. No big feat to figure out I'm female, middle-aged and interested in comfort, color and camouflage. It may be cheap to target me with ads (probably free, at this point), but where does that fit in a world that also puts a premium on halftime-at-the-Superbowl blockbuster ads? Unless we are all watching the Superbowl on Facebook but - will that happen?

 

[Oliver]

By the way - concerning the creepiness of Facebook - I just watched that short part of an interview with Zuckerberg and he got really upset/embarrassed by something the women said after "There's a group of women in the audience who wish you would." [at 1:40]

What did she say shortly after that caused such a reaction???