Myspace

I got myself a myspace profile: myspace.com/barefootreporting.

I like the social side of teh intertubes but stuff like Facebook, Myspace etc are such a rich source of information for snoopers - be they governments, employers or anyone who hasn't got your best interests at heart - that I believe we should think long and hard about what we reveal on them. Facebook groups for activism are just plain stupid.

Facebook only works if you use your real name so it's a gift for anyone trying to protect the status quo in these 'interesting' times. We seem to be engaged in the type of constant warfare Orwell described in the book 1984. War (in the book) was necessary to keep the vast majority of people in poverty and ignorance. Governments like our own are now using war as one part of a strategy to keep us in fear of some great disaster (terrorist, social, economic, and possibly environmental): and that if we don't give them ever greater powers to snoop on 'dangerous individuals', then all our babies will eaten or somesuch. 'The Enemy Within'; it's ground-level fascism.

What government with a surveillance agenda like our own, or the US govt., could resist the lure of something like Facebook? That's too good a source of info, and guess what, it's free and people have already made it Facebook's property - to do with as they wish.

Something I read about Facebook made me think. Normally, if someone starts a project like that, and somebody who should have had a share gets screwed - for example someone who had the idea before you, and which you just ran off and developed - then it goes to a huge high-profile court case and the media have a field day. Have you noticed how the disputes around Facebook's origins and shareholdings have been solved oh-so discreetly? Could it be that some agency or other has been whispering in their ears and applying a bit of pressure? Of course we don't know, as it's all secret.

Btw: overheard the following odd utterance in a cafe: "I don't know if we've met. Are we friends yet?" Facebook ones, y'understand...