The "TwitFace" scandal - Honestly, people, this is first-grade vocabulary
My commentary on the latest Facebook/Twitter connect scandal:
I understand the issues with cross-posting screened comments and comments in friends-only entries. That is not okay. People have those set to private for a reason, and violating that, especially to other sites, is very bad. I didn't get truly worked up about it because I make it a policy that a) I post no information online that I don't want seen by anyone who cares, and b) I do my level best to arrange all my accounts so that any of my real-life associates could strike up a long-term association with online!me without every connecting this identity with offline!me (unless they know me very, very well, in which case I've probably eagerly linked them here anyway.) However, I understand that plenty of other people don't have either of those policies; I understand that for many of them, friends-only accounts and posts are or were their safe spaces. I am fully behind respect for their privacy.
But some people are saying that even comments on public entries shouldn't be cross-posted.
Let me repeat that: They think they should have complete control over who links to public entries.
Does anyone else think that these people need to check their definitions of the word public? Public means exposed to general view. On every update page, right next to the post button, it says "Show this entry to: everyone." If you choose to make a public post, it means that you have freely chosen the option to display your post to everyone interested or bored enough to click on a link. This is not hidden in any way, shape, or form. What did you think "everyone" meant, exactly?
The nature of a public post, anywhere, means that the poster loses control of who does and does not see it. This has been true since long before LJ, or the Internet. Even before the cross-posting feature, any LJ friend who chose could manually post the link to a public entry on Facebook or Twitter (or Myspace, or YouTube, or DreamWidth, or the Official Forum for the Discussion of Toys Made in Northeastern Kansas Between 1892 and 1930) if they wanted to. Any stranger could stumble upon a public post and repost it at any of those sites, if they wanted to. And they would be well within their rights to do so, because by choosing to post something publicly, you have already chosen who can see it. You have chosen to allow everyone to see it.
If you don't want everyone to see it, don't post it in a manner that explicitly makes it available to everyone. I can and will get behind a demand to keep private things private, but learn what "public" means.
I understand the issues with cross-posting screened comments and comments in friends-only entries. That is not okay. People have those set to private for a reason, and violating that, especially to other sites, is very bad. I didn't get truly worked up about it because I make it a policy that a) I post no information online that I don't want seen by anyone who cares, and b) I do my level best to arrange all my accounts so that any of my real-life associates could strike up a long-term association with online!me without every connecting this identity with offline!me (unless they know me very, very well, in which case I've probably eagerly linked them here anyway.) However, I understand that plenty of other people don't have either of those policies; I understand that for many of them, friends-only accounts and posts are or were their safe spaces. I am fully behind respect for their privacy.
But some people are saying that even comments on public entries shouldn't be cross-posted.
Let me repeat that: They think they should have complete control over who links to public entries.
Does anyone else think that these people need to check their definitions of the word public? Public means exposed to general view. On every update page, right next to the post button, it says "Show this entry to: everyone." If you choose to make a public post, it means that you have freely chosen the option to display your post to everyone interested or bored enough to click on a link. This is not hidden in any way, shape, or form. What did you think "everyone" meant, exactly?
The nature of a public post, anywhere, means that the poster loses control of who does and does not see it. This has been true since long before LJ, or the Internet. Even before the cross-posting feature, any LJ friend who chose could manually post the link to a public entry on Facebook or Twitter (or Myspace, or YouTube, or DreamWidth, or the Official Forum for the Discussion of Toys Made in Northeastern Kansas Between 1892 and 1930) if they wanted to. Any stranger could stumble upon a public post and repost it at any of those sites, if they wanted to. And they would be well within their rights to do so, because by choosing to post something publicly, you have already chosen who can see it. You have chosen to allow everyone to see it.
If you don't want everyone to see it, don't post it in a manner that explicitly makes it available to everyone. I can and will get behind a demand to keep private things private, but learn what "public" means.