“Groovy Motherfucker”

“The battle that is underway is not a battle over the future of privacy and publicity. It’s a battle over choice and informed consent. It’s unfolding because people are being duped, tricked, coerced, and confused into doing things where they don’t understand the consequences. Facebook keeps saying that it gives users choices, but that is completely unfair. It gives users the illusion of choice and hides the details away from them “for their own good.””

A consistent tactic for answering those stupid “What color was your first favourite pet?” type questions.

Another great danah boyd essay. “Hanging out on Friendster is like hanging out in a super clean police state where you can’t chew gum let alone goof around and you’re told exactly how to speak to others. Hanging out on MySpace is more like hanging out in a graffiti park with fellow goofballs while your favorite band is playing.”

Excellent paper by danah boyd explaining just why teenagers are spending hours on myspace — Parents have become to paranoid about the “dangers” in the real world, that the only place kids can be themselves unsupervised is online.

Great post by danah boyd about what Wikipedia is and isn’t good for — Make sure and read Jimmy Wales’s steak-knife metaphor. My equation: Full correct information > incomplete information > incorrect information > no information. Wikipedia is nowhere near perfect, but as a free resource it’s fucking amazing. And I’ve read it more than I ever touched the full Britannica collection my parents had when I was a kid.