You are the Product! You must be accurately labeled!

[jducoeur]

Okay, yes -- complaining about how creepy Facebook can be is shooting fish in a barrel.

Still, I was taken aback by the notification I just got there. Un-asked-for, it popped up with, "You last updated your profile 2 weeks ago." Which, on the one hand, is just a statement of fact. But it's a statement loaded with connotation.

Seriously -- why is Facebook telling me this? When I have something I care to say on my Profile, I say it. I don't need reminders -- I certainly don't need automatic, non-opt-in reminders after only two weeks of profile inactivity. And mind you, this isn't saying "you haven't posted" -- I post to FB moderately often. This is saying that I haven't revealed new and updated information about myself.

There's a weird sense that FB is trying to guilt-trip me for not being sufficiently naked: that the system and the audience have the right to know everything that happens in my life, and that if a whole two weeks have gone by without updating my profile, something is clearly wrong.

Yes, it's a little thing. But it's the combination of all those little things that remind me of why I dislike and distrust Facebook...

Comments

[metahacker]

That was the exact moment I logged out and have not gone back. That and ads in my notify list.

[eeeeka]

Yeah. And the little "You've posted the last 3 days! Good job! Have a cookie!" messages. And the "this person just posted for the first time in 3 months" messages.

Very not cool.

[kiya]

The thing that gets me about that is, well, how often do they think that personal information needs changing, huh?

[keshwyn]

Amongst the many reasons I no longer even log in to my fake account there.