Ah yes, the Facebook/Social Media backlash has begun. The NY Times reports:

Another friend, who didn't want his name used, found that Facebook undermined his whole notion of online friendship. "It's easy to think of your circle of 'Friends' as a coherent circle, clear and moated, when in fact the splay of overlap/network makes drip/action painting a better (visual) analogy." Something happened to this drip painting that he won't discuss. He said, "Postings that seem private can scatter and slip unpredictably into a sort of semipublic status."

There are two things going on here, one of them going back to the old BBS days (probably further as well, but I'm limiting myself to electronic groups):

• As groups get larger, they eventually get taken over by trolls
• People are continually surprised that "private" things they post to the web become public

The troll thing is not new - anyone who used to hang out on BBS systems, or USENET groups (or IRC channels) knows what happens when they get "too big" - "that guy" shows up, and it's all downhill from there. The privacy concerns, while understandable, are kind of silly. You simply need to assume that anything you post online (or send in email) may get distributed. Privacy controls don't help when copy/paste exist - once you post it, any recipient can send it anywhere - so if you don't want it plastered all over, don't post it. There's a whole generation of college students who are about to learn this the hard way, when their first employers (people over 40) find their "drunken revelry" pictures on Facebook (etc) and ask questions about behavior.

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