This is an archived sub-group containing the work of pre-2015 cohorts. It is not in active use.

I am not sure if there is any team effort or coordination required in this debate exercise. My intrepretation is each member post an inital argument (for or against according to the member's team assignment) to the group blog. Then pick one member from the opposing team and post a rebuttal. I may be wrong. Terry, would you please clarify. Thanks. 

It's ostensibly a group project... so to really build an effective argument we're going to need to at least make sure we get good coverage, don't all all belabour the same pointy, and don't contradict each other.

But since I'm not getting any response I may try this your way. :)

Given the time constraints I went ahead and posted my own individual response. Soooo please don't everyone email me now. ;)

It is unfortunate that something personal became so public, as pointed out in this article.  I used to be on Facebook several years ago, but then I decided to delete my account.  The main reason for my decision was because I didn't spend much time on the site, didn't see much value in it, and didn't like how it was so public.  Yes, it does facilitate the process of keeping in touch with others and keeping up-to-date with friends.  However, one can also keep in touch and up-to-date with friends/family through directly emailing or phoning those people.  I didn't like the fact that everything was so public - pictures, posts, etc.  It almost felt like people were obsessed with having the most number of "friends" on the site, uploading the most number of pictures, or proving to others that s/he has the most active and fun life.

The internet should be a secure place - not a free for all.  Unfortunatley, the internet seems to have become a "free-for-all".  Anything uploaded to the internet can be used or misused by anyone else out there.  I must admit, there have been times when I was  somewhat thankful for this.  For example, a friend uploaded all pictures taken at her wedding, and I was able to download a very nice picture taken of my family (where only myself, my dad, mom and sister were in the picture) for myself.  On the contrary, there have been times when I was in a group picture, and then noticed that a friend in that picture had uploaded the picture to facebook.  This picture was shared with everyone on facebook since that friend did not enable any privacy settings.  Though this picture was a simple picture of a bunch of us friends sitting together, smiled and posed, I was uncomfortable with the fact that my picture was available for anyone and everyone to see, and with the fact that strangers were commenting on the photos.

Once something is uploaded to the internet, we must rely on the ethical choices and actions of others on what they do with that content.  Regrettably, some people are not as considerate and do things with the content that they would not want to have done to their own content.  Therefore, it is imperative that we really analyze the content we place on the internet.  With regards to others posting content related to ourselves without our knowledge, there is nothing we can do, other than hope that person has taken precautious measures with the privacy settings of that content.

Once material uploaded in Internet even it is classified as personal or private is no different than saying something to a group of people. Not even God can take it back.

The material being said does not belong to that speaker any more. It belongs to the listeners. It is up to the listeners to interpret the meaning. It is also up to the listeners to keep it within the circle or not. There is no organised regulation in Internet. Information can be spread freely. Also, there is no place to control the spread.

I personally don’t think FaceBook is private place. And it is even less likely to identify all ‘friends’ are trustworthy.  Facebook is an digital community to congregate only. If one has private thoughts, one should always keeps such in one’s heart. And only share to trusted friends whom one knows for sure. 

@Pandora, Judy - does the same apply to email? Presumably it must. What about social sites that support people with medical and psychiatric problems? 

I'm particularly interested in the context of the Landing, which is very different from Facebook in almost every way that counts: people here are not the product, they are valued as things in themselves, and they own what they create. One of the basic principles behind the Landing is that you can choose what you reveal and to whom you reveal it, and we've done a lot of work to ensure that you can shift safely and securely between social contexts, showing some things to some people and different things to others. Some of the replies I'm seeing here make me worry that there is no point in doing that. Is that true?