Facebook Movie Shows Just How Out Of Hand Facebook Has Gotten

I found this movie, titled “Facebook Movie”, to be pretty funny. It does point out some problems that I have also observed myself. Personally, I don’t like the way Facebook has turned out. It used to be a more closed community. It was orig­i­nally more selective. It started off as a social networking tool for Harvard students. Shortly after its creation the site became open to Ivy League schools. Even­tually, it became open to everyone who simply had an email address. So why am I anti-Facebook?

The problem I have with such open access is that there is no more vali­dation of identity. My memory could very well be wrong, but you used to need a valid email address that was affil­iated with a recog­nized school. That at the very least ensured that you were a real member of that community. Or if you were really hardcore about sneaking in, it would take a consid­erable amount of effort (or maybe not…I’m not a hacker).

Now, you can be whoever you want to be. With the removal of such an identity check, as basic as it may be, Facebook has become just like any other online social networking site like MySpace. Just look at all the ridiculous names on Facebook. You have people who claim to be char­acters from animé and science fiction stories, from Boba Fett to Goku. People reinvent them­selves and create a new persona, making Facebook yet another channel for yet another façade. Prior to such openness on Facebook, one could guess with fair accuracy that the person they saw in a profile was the real person. Now John Doe could really be a stalker who tries to befriend people in order to glean personal information.

Facebook is also becoming a threat to privacy. Just look at your average Facebook profile. It contains a person’s first and last name, their entire birthdate, their home town, possibly their current address, their email addresses and screen­names, often their phone numbers, and what school they go to. It used to be that a stalker really needed to put in a lot of work to get all of that infor­mation. Now, it’s all right out in the open for all to see. Granted, Facebook now has imple­mented some more privacy settings. But only those who are aware of privacy settings are really going to care enough to move eighty percent of their three hundred acquain­tances into a limited profile group.

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