Facebook Strikes Again

A must listen segment for all who work with college students (not just student-athletes) to help them understand the risks of their very public lifestyles. Then again, looking at the fact that 45-plus females are the fastest growing segment of new users on Facebook, perhaps this a post for all.

Dan Gillmor is the guest, and the new Facebook Messages tool is the subject. I'll let Dan distill it into a Tweetable quote:

My understanding is if you have decided to import everything into your Facebook Messaging that all of these conversations that you have will be saved for posterity, police and divorce lawyers.

OK, that's actually a Tweet and a third, but you get the point.

Facebook is in the business of aggregating data, sifting it and sorting it. They're not any different than Axiom, a home state business that is one of the world wide leaders in data mining. All sorts of black helicopter fears are assigned to that -- it's Echelon for the business class. The Googleplex is out there, vacuuming up the Matrix of your digital lives.

Why again do we not see Facebook in that way? Because we friend each other and we just heart the system!

Let's be clear -- I use it, I like it, but I also know that I can't trust it. Dan, as usual, is spot on and it bears repeating: "saved for posterity, police and divorce lawyers."

Said it once, say it again: Digital assets are easily copied, imminently portable and last forever.