Cyberpunk and media theorist Douglas Rushkoff talks perfect sense, yet again, on the dangers of using Facebook. As he aptly points out: "The true end users of Facebook are the marketers who want to reach and influence us. They are Facebook's paying customers; we are the product. And we are its workers"...
'I used to be able to justify using Facebook as a cost of doing business. As a writer and sometime activist who needs to promote my books and articles and occasionally rally people to one cause or another, I found Facebook fast and convenient. Though I never really used it to socialize, I figured it was okay to let other people do that, and I benefited from their behavior.
'I can no longer justify this arrangement. Today I am surrendering my Facebook account, because my participation on the site is simply too inconsistent with the values I espouse in my work. In my upcoming book Present Shock, I chronicle some of what happens when we can no longer manage our many online presences. I argue - as I always have - for engaging with technology as conscious human beings, and dispensing with technologies that take that agency away.
'Facebook is just such a technology. It does things on our behalf when we're not even there. It actively misrepresents us to our friends, and - worse - misrepresents those who have befriended us to still others. To enable this dysfunctional situation - I call it “digiphrenia” - would be at the very least hypocritical. But to participate on Facebook as an author, in a way specifically intended to draw out the "likes" and resulting vulnerability of others, is untenable.
'Facebook has never been merely a social platform. Rather, it exploits our social interactions the way a Tupperware party does. Facebook does not exist to help us make friends, but to turn our network of connections, brand preferences, and activities over time - our "social graphs" - into a commodity for others to exploit.' (Rushkoff article).
media-underground.net