Facebook Violating Privacy
 

So, I don't have a Facebook profile. I don't want a Facebook profile. There's a reason I'm not in touch with a lot of people from high school / college / family members. I don't want to set up a page where acquaintances can check up on me and then pretend like they're good friends when I happen to see them. My SO, however, wastes countless hours on these social networking sites, which I don't have a problem with, so long as she leaves me out of it. Here's where my problem comes in, she "friends" a bunch of my friends and family members, and then when we have a disagreement or she's mad at me she uses the site as a public forum to ridicule me. My sister mentioned something about it to me yesterday, where my SO pretty much called me a bad father because I didn't want to go to a "costume party" with our little boy that she sprung on me at the last minute and neglected to mention was a church function. I go to church for two reasons: weddings and funerals, and either happened to be mine, I'd request a different venue.

I'm not really sure what I should do about this, but one thing I am certainly going to do is demand that she leaves me out of her online bullshit.

I know I'm not the only one. A few weeks ago a friend of mine's dog got run over. He was pretty tore up about and was not at all happy when people he hadn't spoken to in years that had never even seen his dog were calling up to express their condolences and seemed to know an awful lot about his personal life and what he'd been up to, including people from whom he has purposely estranged himself. Turn out some of these people are his wife's "friends" on Facebook and she was writing stuff about him in her status updates. He was livid and I don't blame him.

Has anyone else here had their privacy violated by other people's social networking pages? How do you feel about that?

curious since you're doing the same thing, just under a pseudonym.

In relation to your wife, this wouldn't be limited to Facebook. If there was no such thing as social media, she probably may be inclined to do the same behavior which is known as gossiping.

This now boils down to communication. You need to let her know that she should not be gossiping about you. You need to setup some sort of dialogue to let her know what is and isn't acceptable to post about.

Example:
The 3 of you were engaged in an activity together. Is that fair for her to let be known?
She is engaged in an activity. Is that fair for her to be let known?
Your child is engaged in an activity. Is that fair for her to let be known?
You are engaged in an activity. Is that fair for her to be let known?

My wife knows that I speak about her from time to time here on TFP. She is comfortable with me mentioning very select things, and she does find it strange when she meets some of these folk here that they know so much about her, meaning more than zero. But I stop at very generic things in public, and some private things in blogs, and even more private things in private blogs which are for a select few.

Skogafoss had no interested in Facebook, until she saw me reconnecting with some old long lost friends. She was having her own issues trying to find someone, and I suggested she try Facebook, she gave in and has enjoyed the site and reconnecting with these old friends both virtually and in person.

The pseudonym matters, though. You don't have my phone number, my address, where I work / went to school, etc.

There is a huge difference between the mostly anonymous avatars at TFP and the blatant this-is-my-life crap at Facebook.

You can dig in TFP all you want and try to interpret "Prime Self" and "time displacement equipment technician."

Might try to dig through ~6000 posts or my blog to find out little snippets of my life, but I'm pretty forgettable.

Facebook is, generally speaking, a picture phonebook where people bitch and moan and gossip.

Pretty sure there is a reason every clearance'd employer checks for your Intarwebz footprint.

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FaceySpace is a huge gaping cancer sore to those of us that like our privacy.

I made the mistake of having a profile and I was popping up everywhere.

Emailed a specific TFPer once, unrelated to FB, and suddenly I was popping up on other TFPers FBs.

Totally scary. Facebook had hooked me up with people with which I had zero direct contact.

I thought I had restricted things to the highest level possible, but apparently not.

The fact that Facebook uses email account info really turns it into a privacy mess.


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The only way to prevent such nuisance is to not be there in the first place.

And, as far as your partner goes, have them keep their cyber mouth shut.

Oh wow, yeah that'd piss me off too. Definitely ask for her to avoid discussing you with people who have no business getting in yours. But I can see this turning into a massive argument (if I were involved lol) so keep your cool.

I was at an old friend's house last weekend. We've known each other since middle school. I don't do Facebook either. Well, she pulled it up and started showing me how happy and successful everyone we went to school with 'appears to be' doing now. About halfway through, I had to make her stop. My life hasn't been roses and peanut butter cups. And I do understand that a handful of smiley pictures doesn't necessarily mean they're living blissfully, but I was still disgusted. It's like after all these years, they still feel the need to put on this act of sorts. I mean, my Classmates.com picture is me smiling, yet shooting a bird. Fuck 'em.

Sorry if I derailed there lol.

...yeah, we were good until the "shooting a bird" part.

I've been wanting to remove it completely but I forgot my password. And I guess it's just not that important to me anyways lol.

I wish UsTwo would post in this thread.

I know that a lot of people on here are friends IRL and have met, but none of you have met me or my SO as far as I (or you) know. TFP offers anonymity and is a good place for me to vent and get advise from (and sometimes advise) disinterested third parties. Nothing I post on the TFP is going to result in my mom calling me and asking why I'd rather play video games than go to a party with my little boy. As far as ground rules, I'm thinking no pictures of me, no mention of me, nothing implying anything about me. If she wants to put herself and the little boy out there, nothing I can do about that, but I don't want any involvement.

And I wouldn't believe everything you see about old classmates and others you see on the internet. These pages are people's personal shrines to themselves. On the internet everyone's a model.

lol yeah I know. I guess I'd just rather see folks keeping it real instead of bragging about the good things they may or may not have in life. Like, instead of 'married for 12 years and I have 3 beautiful children and a fantastic career,' it'd be refreshing to see something like 'divorced twice with a cat and I work the morning shift at Denny's.'

I could write "married for 12 years and I have 5 beautiful children and a fantastic career" - but everyone who knows me enough to be befriended at facebook knows that allready. I'll rather update my status with what I would like to share from my life, good or bad, in a humorous way.

My profile contains just a little information about me, only visible to my friends. The friends I have at facebook are all people I would say "hi" to if I ran into them, and then continue with a conversation. I don't post bad or incriminating stuff about my family, or any other persons. In my opinion facebook is NOT a good place to rant, and I feel weird when people do - ranting is good, but do it somewhere you'r not identified, with all your friends and family and "third cousins neighbours sisters step brothers dog" able to see. Want to go public? Get a blog.

I arn't bothered by this, but due to my girlfriend's pregnancy, random people from school do seem to be adding me not to comment, but just feel's as if they want to know what's going on.. (Which is up to them, if they have nothing better to do)

But Facebook causes a lot of problems, with job's friends etc etcetc

I primarily use facebook to post my opinions on various bit of modern media in gaming, music or movies, along with organizing or attending various events for my friends or by my friends. I'm not really sure how people think it's an invasion of privacy, I mean I do have a life off the computer and i'm not updating my status every 15 minutes with pointless meme updates. *shrug* People tend to throw themselves a little too hard in to the online aspect of their lives to the point that they forgo phone calls, texting, in person events, or whatnot, that stuff doesn't tend to end up all over the computer until well after the event, and even then, only if it was worth commenting on or sharing.

Ultimately this has nothing to with facebook, or privacy, your wife could just as well spazz on your shit over the phone to her friends & family. You could thank facebook for making it more transparent and obvious to you just what kind of maturity level you're dealing with.

I don't care if she's on there commenting on various things or updating her status with her stuff and I don't care what she blabs to her friends about, I just don't want our disagreements dragged into a public forum that includes half of my friends and extended family.

I think Shauk and I are on the same page with this....

So if you were at a party and she started saying all the same things in the presence of your friends and family it would be okay with you?

I am a little confused about this "being public" for things like potential employers re: Facebook. If I click on a friend's friend, each time it will go to their page but it will be blank with a "So-and-so only allows friends to see his page." and suggests you put in a friend request. And it's only those who are one crayon short of a full box that would allow complete strangers to be a "friend".
The spouse and I do not have each other as friends-if there's something to share, we read it to each other. I think perhaps you should sign in, put the spouse as a friend (reject all other requests) and then you could come back with a "remember when you did (insert action here) and that really pissed me off?"
But yea, she needs to quit whining about things there-that ain't the place for it and it appears as if she wants to make you look like the bad guy.

Facebook is getting blamed for your wife's talking out of school. Back in the 30s you would have been complaining about her gossiping on the shared party phone line. New technology that enables bad behavior is going to get blamed for the behavior; it has been this way since the quill was invented.

I think speed and magnitude and the visual medium are involved here, Ratbastid.

Your comparison is like a hand grenade versus a MOAB.

What I'm saying is, every time there's a breakthrough in communication media, the new technology gets blamed for the abuse that it's used for. Gutenberg was accused of slander because his press design was used by others for publications that defamed public figures. Not even the press he built and owned, but others built following his design! This is no different.

My point is, Facebook isn't violating anybody's privacy (except when they are--technical failures that expose private information have happened, but are beyond the scope of this conversation). It's the OP's wife who's exposing info he doesn't wish to be exposed. IMO the fact that she's doing it on the intertubes is complete beside the point.

I concur with your History Channel philosophy bit. It's 100% true. I'm not suggesting that the software is causing problems, but that the means of communication allowed by the software is to blame. As always, humans take the ability of the technology and twist it for the most nefarious purposes. The issue is that Facebook is so detailed (dummies can put their phone number and address on it), universal (any computer with Web) and so easy to use (dummy-proof) that it is more dangerous than previous technologies. Using my silly munitions analogy: both devices I detailed above go kablooey, but the MOAB is certainly gonna make a bigger hole in the ground.

In a way, you can blame the technology... because people never change.

I know, it's always someone or something else's fault, except for the person taking the action.

Okay, whatever.

But where does blaming Facebook get you? Isn't this what this is all about?

If that was sarcasm, it only serves to reinforce my point.

If not, it's true.

Pretty sure blaming his wife is also involved in this. She's having an "emo moment" online. It's not appropriate behavior.

Something along the lines of, "Shaddup, woman. If I wanted my personal life broadcast all across the US, I'd show up on Maury."

Does this mean we're okay to blame guns now?

I think this thread should be retitled "Wife violating privacy"

My wife and I are both on facebook. And twitter. And we each have individual blogs, and a shared blog we both keep up for our daughter. Why? Our family is spread out all over the country, and we like to stay in touch, and its easier than mailing everyone baby pictures all the time. I know everyone on my facebook list in person, and half of them are relatives.

Would I bring a spousal conflict to Facebook? Hell naw. Would my wife? Definitely not. The problem is the message, not the medium.

Yes. Or maybe "Wife Violating Privacy Online."

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Do we really wanna get into a prosaic technical circlejerk about how firearms have revolutionized violence because any old dumbass can pull a trigger?

And discussion of firearms bores me. Let's stick with the current discussion. I get the point of your suggested digression but it's just as silly.

There is no blame game for technology. There are facts about technology and petty bullshit human activities.

awww.. that's awesome. I didn't even think of it from the sarcasm point. no, i was stating it as a truth.

I apologize, kind sir... years of exposure to The_Jazz. :paranoid:

I mostly agree with you on this. She is the one who is using the technology to talk about our disagreements and cast me in a bad light. I just feel powerless to defend myself unless I create an account, which I don't want to do for aforementioned reasons. I mean sure, I could "pocket veto" everyone that tries to send me a friend request, but that's really the same as rejecting them. And I know many of you don't believe it, and I could just be paranoid, but I believe your pages are tracked and analyzed by advertising companies, government agencies and others. Basically I think if you're on there you have sacrificed some degree of your privacy and if you aren't you leave yourself open with no real way to monitor it or defend yourself.

facebook isnt to blame, its the wife. Like emails nowadays, be careful before hitting REPLY TO ALL when emailing your best friend about that STD. Discretion and a slow trigger finger are advised.

As for facebook status pages. I don't think its people lying. Even when I was living in my car working as a dishwasher my status update would have probably read "chillin by the beach enjoying the midnight breeze." As opposed to "Life sucks, I should go read some Edgar Allen Poe."


Facebook is a convenient tool to stay in touch with my large family. I can't imagine calling every one, or emailing every one of my relatives with the same story over and over and clicking attachments to be rejected by their email...........oh it'd never end.
Instead they just see I updated my facebook photos and they go on their own to look.

what????? that would create a tear in the fabric of honor that binds the entire Facebook status community together.

Besides, I'm into bojanjo now... I'm tossing my vagina at you.