Facebook now just Little Brother

Facebook (must I hyperlink the word?) has moderated its latest intrusion of users' privacy, Facebook Beacon, a program that sent notices to all of a Facebook user's friends when they bought something on one of 44 participating websites. These notices show up on newsfeeds accompanied by a complementary banner ad on the left.

Facebook Beacon prompted an online petition against its practices that led to today's announcement. The Becaon feature will remain, but case-by-case opt-outs will now be available and more noticeable so that not everyone will know that you bought a Fight Club movie poster on allposters.com.

Facebook is trying to walk a fine line between respecting people's privacy and making a profit so that it can stay in business. While I believe that Facebook (the application) is not "private" in any sense of the word and that users lack a private subjectivity that they possess in real life, I also believe that my personal information shouldn't be used by any kind of tracking software for such blatant marketing purposes. Ideally, what I buy is no one's business but my own.

My post was inspired by a rather dense digital media marketer quoted in the New York Times story:

“Isn’t this community getting a little hypocritical?” said Chad Stoller, director of emerging platforms at Organic, a digital advertising agency. “Now, all of a sudden, they don’t want to share something?”

The quotation, along with the existence of Beacon itself, indicates how far marketers have to go before truly understanding the mindset of the Facebook user. Yes, Mr. Stoller, all of a sudden, we don't want to share something. Perhaps you have noticed that everything we share on Facebook we volunteer. Perhaps you've noticed that users can determine which kinds of actions are published to their public newsfeed. Perhaps you've noticed that people in general don't take lightly to having their own information used without their knowledge or information. The issue, sir, is not about not wanting to share, but not even knowing that you're sharing and not having the chance to say, "no, thanks, I'd rather not."

I believe that Facebook execs and advertisers have gone about tracking user purchases the wrong way. Facebook is unusual because its very existence depends on the public nature of its information gathering. We know that Facebook tracks us because we see it in our newsfeeds. But everytime the cashier swipes my Safeway, my Indigo card, my Shoppers card, I know that the information is flying through the ether into a database in who-knows-where as well. That doesn't seem to bother me as much because, oddly, I have no idea what the information is being used for. In other words, the information gathering seems—and only seems, mind you—more benign because I don't see the end results.

Facebook can't lull its users into the same sense of false security. But what it could do is capitalize on its users' odd penchant for sharing every bloody part of their lives online— emphasis on the "sharing". If Facebook could figure out how to make users want to talk about their latest purchases (sale notices? promotions? coupons?) there would be less backlash. I do tell my friends if my favourite store is having a good sale or if I bought something particularly nice for myself recently. I do it because I'm an excitable (self-aware but still excitable) consumer. Capture that excitement, Mr. Zuckerberg, and you might be in business.

Literary realism vs. internal logic

I've been teaching Eliza Haywood's Fantomina, Or, Love in a Maze recently and some students can't get past the fact that the story's eponymous heroine manages, four different times, to seduce a man while she is in four different disguises. Yes, she is an excellent actress and yes he's probably a little dense. I would also argue that Fantomina picks her "personas" carefully, selecting roles that most eighteenth-century men would already associate with female sexuality (prostitute, maid, widow).

But my students' inability to let this point go speaks to a larger issue about any kind of narrative art form—the question of whether or not it's "realistic" and the odd moments in a text/movie/story that disrupt the sometimes-necessary suspension of disbelief involved in consuming narrative. In other words, it's not the larger conceits that we have issues with, but the smaller inconsistencies. For example, when watching the time-travelling movie Run Lola Run, in which the same story is played out three different times with the heroine learning from the previous rendition, my friend Natalie was bothered by how the protagonist and her boyfriend seemed to be talking to each other while separated by a sliding glass door. Though she wondered how they could have heard each other, she didn't question the movie's overall concept that Lola somehow managed to travel back in time twice (do-over!) in an attempt to save said boyfriend.

I have realized, however, that the issue I'm describing is not a question of realism but rather of logic. We expect a work of art to have its own internal logic and at least be consistent in its own world: If all the animals talk, that's fine; if only one animal talks, it's weird. And as readers we somehow still expect an internal logic, things to "make sense" in the world of the movie. The need for unity is strong indeed.

Words added

Words added to my Word spellcheck dictionary tonight: Bakhtin, Bakhtin's, carnivalesque, parodic.

Why yes, I am teaching the Masquerade in Eigtheenth-century England tomorrow. Why do you ask?

Laughing baby

Of all the Internet clips of impossibly cute, laughing babies, this one is my favourite. Why? The physical comedy.

A song named Derrida

Tonight I learned, from that great font of knowledge that is Wikipedia, that there exists a song called "Jacques Derrida". It's by the band Scritti Politti, which paid cheeky musical tribute to the (then not-) late, great deconstructionist on its 1982 debut album.

The song is a rather dated, sped up bassanova (a mediocre sound file is available at the first bullet point here), but some of the lyrics make me laugh, most notably

He held it like a cigarette
Behind a squandee's back
He held it so he hid its length
And so he hid its lack

Also, singer/songwriter Green Gartside pronounces it "Jacques DerEEda".

Yes yes. I'm too easily amused.

P.S. The most recent Scritti Politti CD, White Bread, Black Beer, is worth a spin.

Ottawa

At the end of the summer, at the Fringe Fest, I won a free flight with Westjet. Due to restrictions and fine print and my tight schedule, the only time I could really take advantage was over the short November Reading break. And so, I went to Ottawa to visit Rutha and some relatives.


After a very early flight, I arrived in our fair capital hungry and tired. After a nap, tea and a snack, Rutha and I went to a lovely and very decadent Sicilian-themed dinner.

If I look a little flushed in the photo, well, that glass of wine I'm holding didn't drink itself. Oh, and this was dessert:


A little cannoli on the left and a cassata (almond pastry filled with riccota and chocolate) on the right. Soooo much sugar.... Until dessert, everyone had been getting full and mellow. But afterwards there was silliness and Sicilians spontaneously singing.

On a more somber note, the next day (Nov. 11) we went to the Remembrance Day ceremonies at the National War Memorial. The weather was beautiful and as a result the crowd was huge. If you look closely at this photo you can kind of see what's going on at the memorial. Kind of.

It was a little odd to finally "see" an event in person that I had watched many times on television, most notably because I couldn't see anything except a giant TV screen that had been set up. So despite the fact that I was "there", I still watched most of it on TV (at an angle) without clearly hearing the sounds of the ceremony. As a result, the effect of the somber occasion was bit muted.

Most of the time in Ottawa was spent just hanging out (shopping, lots of coffee) rather than seeing things, since I've been to Ottawa several times before. So we walked around the Glebe area, went shopping in the market, and I walked along the canal:


I then spent a couple of days with family, whose lovely company was enhanced with what seemed to be an endless supply of chocolate and a seriously cute three-and-a-half-year-old who never stops talking. Oh, to be young and verbal.

Nice knitting, but...

I'm on a bit of a yarn/knitting kick right now, browsing through pattern sites, looking for neat projects. Came across a pattern for a really cool-looking 5-in-1 chameleon hat that quintuples (?) as a tuque, ear warmer, balaclava, jesterish-looking hat, and neck warmer. On closer inspection (flickr photos), however, I came to a key realization.

The darn thing is LACE. The neat resemblances to chainmail notwithstanding, there's no way it will keep you warm.

Too bad. It's an awesome design.

Broken Bodum, take 2

For the second time in six months, I have broken a bodum. The first time was entirely my fault—I accidentally knocked it over and it shattered into a million little pieces on my kitchen floor. Clean up was a bitch and I mourned my Bodum-brand French press for the duration of an afternoon.

This time, all I did was press the plunger down. And this happened:


Note, though, that the piece of glass on the counter does not match the gap in the bodum.


Which means that the other piece is in my coffee. Which means that I cannot even drink my coffee for fear of little glass pieces. Which also means that I won't be buying a cheap-ass IKEA bodum again.

And yes, those are homemade chocolate chip cookies in the photo's background. You know what goes great with chocolate chip cookies?

Coffee. That's what.