"Not if you've stuffed it full of information that is in no way representative of yourself, is the notion the parent poster is describing."
Well, but what would that actually look like? And who would actually do such a thing?
What I am trying to point out that "it doesn't have the name from my passport attached to it" does in no way mean that it's not "representative of yourself". The name in my passport has some special significance, but in many ways it's also just as much a pseudonym as "zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC" is. If someone knew everything about you, except for the name in your passport, you could hardly argue that they didn't know you, could you? If someone writes a comment on here using a pseudonym, do you really think that the content of that comment is "in no way representative of [themselves]"? Does it matter for facebook that they don't know the name from your passport when they can see a large part of your interaction with the world? Does it make any difference in how they can influence you? What's the effect once you add in your social contacts? How is your social interaction hidden by the fact that you use a pseudonym to tell facebook who you know in real life and what you talk to them about? Even if all of them were using pseudonyms?
Edit: To maybe make it even clearer: Stuffing an account full of information that is in no way representative of yourself would mean that you use the account only to communicate with randomly selected people (otherwise it's info about who you are interested in talking to), newly selected randomly for each new contribution (otherwise it's info about who of the people selected randomly previously you found interesting), writing about randomly selected topics, probably mostly stuff that you are not interested in (but not necessarily, of course, otherwise the lack of certain topics would represent your interests), writing from a randomly selected standpoint (even on topics that you are actually interested in, otherwise it's representing your standpoint), but of course never using your expertise for anything you write (neither for defending your actual standpoint nor the opposite side, as the depth of your knowledge would be representative of yourself).
Specifying that your name is foobar and that you live in Peking and then talking about events in Paris to a semi-constant group of people many of whom are also constantly talking about events in Paris at the time when people in Paris are awake ... is not "Stuffing an account full of information that is in no way representative of yourself". If any human with half a brain can infer something from the whole picture of all the data you and your contacts supply, then that info is there, whether you specified it explicitly or not, and the only way to avoid that is by not letting your interests and your knowledge influence what you do, which is something nobody would ever do.
>do you really think that the content of that comment
Easy fix for me, I don't comment on things on Facebook, nor do I ever feel the need to and I never visit the news feed. My usage is pretty much either:
- Receive email about event, RSVP.
- Receive email about group message, respond with Yes/No/Okay.
Well, but what would that actually look like? And who would actually do such a thing?
What I am trying to point out that "it doesn't have the name from my passport attached to it" does in no way mean that it's not "representative of yourself". The name in my passport has some special significance, but in many ways it's also just as much a pseudonym as "zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC" is. If someone knew everything about you, except for the name in your passport, you could hardly argue that they didn't know you, could you? If someone writes a comment on here using a pseudonym, do you really think that the content of that comment is "in no way representative of [themselves]"? Does it matter for facebook that they don't know the name from your passport when they can see a large part of your interaction with the world? Does it make any difference in how they can influence you? What's the effect once you add in your social contacts? How is your social interaction hidden by the fact that you use a pseudonym to tell facebook who you know in real life and what you talk to them about? Even if all of them were using pseudonyms?
Edit: To maybe make it even clearer: Stuffing an account full of information that is in no way representative of yourself would mean that you use the account only to communicate with randomly selected people (otherwise it's info about who you are interested in talking to), newly selected randomly for each new contribution (otherwise it's info about who of the people selected randomly previously you found interesting), writing about randomly selected topics, probably mostly stuff that you are not interested in (but not necessarily, of course, otherwise the lack of certain topics would represent your interests), writing from a randomly selected standpoint (even on topics that you are actually interested in, otherwise it's representing your standpoint), but of course never using your expertise for anything you write (neither for defending your actual standpoint nor the opposite side, as the depth of your knowledge would be representative of yourself).
Specifying that your name is foobar and that you live in Peking and then talking about events in Paris to a semi-constant group of people many of whom are also constantly talking about events in Paris at the time when people in Paris are awake ... is not "Stuffing an account full of information that is in no way representative of yourself". If any human with half a brain can infer something from the whole picture of all the data you and your contacts supply, then that info is there, whether you specified it explicitly or not, and the only way to avoid that is by not letting your interests and your knowledge influence what you do, which is something nobody would ever do.