I recently had a pretty disappointing encounter with someone on facebook.  He had been on my friends’ list for a year or so.  I was not close friends with him, but I had met him in in person at an event I attended, and he sent a friend request through an online photo album I had submitted pictures to (the event we both attended). He is also an acquaintance and facebook friend of my brother, who is also involved with the event through which I met this gentleman.

As is usual for me, I post a wide variety of things on my facebook page, from links to articles to pictures to commentaries to comics.  I also post about what’s going on in my life, my kids’ lives, books I’m reading, movies I’m watching, and good things that have happened to me.  I’m pretty much an open book on facebook, with one huge exception:  my profile is not public, and I limit my posts and comments only to those on my friends list that I want to reach or talk to.  This gentleman was one of those people, since he and I had a mutual interest in something.

So, I posted a link to an article from my hometown, about a Catholic school that had made a financial decision I didn’t agree with.  No biggie, I make such posts fairly often, and sometimes my friends agree with me, and sometimes they don’t.  There is usually some discussion at the comment level, and then we all move on to other things.  If there’s one thing facebook is, it’s a haven for “change the subject” or as the ADD crowd would say: “look, squirrel!”

This time, however, the comment conversation continued, to the point of some sharp words being spoken in the comments by several of my friends.  This gentleman was on one side, and everyone else was on the other, and it was getting out of hand.  I made one final post in the comment stream, telling all of them that the discussion was finished, it was time to move on.

It was at this point that the gentleman posted a comment that was rather ungentlemanly, and followed that up with a statement that if I didn’t want discussion then I shouldn’t post on a “public forum.”  Then he blocked me.

Of course I found this odd, since the original topic wasn’t all that controversial, and because I do not see my facebook page as a public forum of any kind.  Only the people I want to see what I’m saying are seeing what I’ve been saying; if I wanted it to be a “public forum” then I’d post my opinions somewhere else, something not locked down or limited to viewing by only a handful of people.  I consider facebook my “inner circle,” people who I share things with, people that I’ve generally met in person and that I have had more than just casual interaction with.

But it does make me think a bit more about what I share and why I share it.  Not because I wouldn’t have shared this particular link outside of facebook, because I’ve had some thought of making a blog post out of it on my personal blog at some point, but because we may think all these people who are on our friends list are sitting in our living room, that we know them well, and that they would never harm us.  Maybe they wouldn’t.  But then again, maybe they would.  Or at the very least, share our comments, intended for only certain ears, with those that are not in our “inner circle.”  How much of a public forum is facebook, even when it is locked down?

Things to ponder.

facebook’s most recent changes are a big problem for many.  As a heavy user of facebook, I’m frustrated by their attempts to control what I see and how I see it, as much as the next guy.  I don’t particularly want facebook to decide what my “top stories” are, and the move of the “home” button to the upper right–hand corner of the content means I have to scroll to the right in order to get back to the top of the site when I’m using my laptop.  No amount of adjustments, installations of Firefox add-ins like Better facebook! have helped in this regard.  I would say that it’s just because I’m resistant to change, but the truth is, the changes have made it more difficult for me to navigate and to see what I go there to see.  In the five or so days since these big changes were made, I have found myself missing posts (due to the top post feature that I can’t seem to turn off), and spending three times as long to do what I used to do (moving around, reading posts, getting back to the top, adding photos, etc.).  Of all the changes so far in the years I’ve been using facebook, these are severe enough, and frustrating enough, for me to consider limiting my time on the site.

That being said, we haven’t seen anything yet.  The upcoming changes to how facebook is going to use our information (dubbed f8) are just about drawing a line in the sand for me.  These changes actually scare me, in the sense that facebook wants us to be “on facebook” no matter where we are.  We used to say that we should be afraid of Google.  Afraid of how we were putting all of our information in Google’s hands.  How Google was the gorilla in the room that we we shouldn’t ignore.

I feel far more threatened with facebook’s upcoming changes than I ever have with Google’s attempts to be everything to everyone.  facebook is moving in a frightening direction.  Soon, if you visit a web page, listen to some music, watch a video, buy a book, etc., that information will be posted to your facebook account without you having to have done a thing.  Imagine, all of your friends finding you’re a closet fan of disco music, or that you frequent sites about drag racing and cake decorating.  Maybe you don’t care that your friends know this, but then again, maybe you do!  The reason many of us share links or photos on our facebook accounts is because we want to share those specific items with our friends.  When everything you do starts being posted, how happy are you going to be with that?

Of course, this is all good for facebook.  They can begin to target advertising to you and to your friends based on your activities all over the Internet.  And honestly, is this something we want?

I have, of course, gotten a Google + account, and while it’s interesting, it’s not going to replace the things about facebook that I like.  I have a nice tight group of friends on facebook, and several years worth of conversations, pictures, links, discussions, etc. that I hate to lose.  I liked facebook, and I still like it somewhat, in that it gives me a great way to talk to my close friends and family on a regular basis, and to share with multiple people at the same time when something is going on.  But I don’t want to share EVERYTHING, and I want to have a choice.  Leaving facebook means cutting off a perfect form of communication for me.  It has been even more critical since I moved across the country and away from friends and family.  But I cannot and will not share every element of my life with everyone on facebook.  I do not want that control taken away from me, the control over what I share and with whom.

But the forthcoming changes are not just annoying.  They could be dangerous.  I’m still in a “wait and see” and “sitting on the fence” attitude.  But facebook may just have numbered its days with me.  I don’t think I can trust my information with them much longer, which is a sad, sad thing.  It was such a perfect thing before they started messing with it.