subject: Facebook Asks You To Share Or Else [print this page] The next time you arrive on your Facebook profile page, you will be greeted with a new options box that will introduce you to the new and improved Connected Profiles. The new Connected Profiles will array before you set of possible Pages to connect your profile to - Pages to do with arts, music, amateur astronomy, anything you want. Anything in your Facebook profile - where you come from, what your interests are or anything else, will be linked to the relevant Facebook Pages (if for instance you list rap music among your interests, you will be offered to be connected to a Facebook page on that subject).If you happen to be one of those sticklers for privacy and you decide not to take Facebook up on its offer to connect you to one of its Public pages, Facebook might end up having your profile blanked out as part of Facebook's new strategy to "encourage" people to connect more.
Facebook likes to put a really pretty spin on it; in an official Facebook release a couple of weeks ago, Facebook describes the Connected Profiles option as a way to turn your personal information into really exciting Pages, instead of simple text. Turning personal information into a page in its own right can certainly be fun; but there are ways in which to express oneself that couldn't always be reduced to a Page recommendation. If you always liked to dress up your profile with uncategorizable nuggets from your personal interests in music and literature that couldn't really be reduced to a Page. If you dont go along with them, from now on you'll have to do your expressing on the Bio section.
Facebook wants you to share and connect your profile in this way. The default option on their options box for the Connected Profiles feature, is to select everything offered. Facebook must depend on this kind of credulity to establish a new product. Most people are so used to seeing pop-up boxes, that they summarily do what is asked of them. But this isn't all fun and games like they make it sound; if you don't link as they would have you, your profile information will be blanked out.
Technically, Facebook is on the right side of the law - they haven't forced anyone actually, to share anything; they just walk closer and closer to doing so. Certainly, having everyone share everything about themselves makes for a far more interesting Web. But pretty soon, the Internet is not going to be about free choice anymore; pretty soon, if you don't choose to share your personal information, you'll just be locked out of all kinds of services. The Internet could soon turn into a kind of juvenile Truth or Dare. People should remember that the Internet is not a game - as every application out there tries to convince you it is.
