[Air-L] With Friends Like Facebook ....

[smork at itu.dk]

@Ray: Indeed Ray, it is a very ethical question. I tried to raise this in
relation to second life as a teaching environment and studying web2.0
technologies more generally at the last AoIR conf. I use anthropological
methods in my research – interviews and participant observation (both
online/offline) – and I find it extremely difficult to distance myself
from these types of software, not that one necessarily has to do that, but
distance have often proved to be a good thing when you write your
ethnography, after being immersed completely in it for awhile.
Facebook, Second Life and most parts of the internet are very divergent
and manifold subjects, but it is becoming more and more clear that they
are closely tied to capitalism, and that I think poses an ethical question
for us. Think for instance of our usual historic idea of what manifests a
good university and teaching environment; these ideas are deeply rooted in
European history and are very very far away of the kind of world second
life and Facebook offers to us.
@Kathleen: thanks for drawing attention to this fact, I did not know and
find it rather disturbing that it is not possible to quit completely


Soeren Moerk
ITU Copenhagen, PhD Candidate

> On the question of pulling one's Facebook profile, I would also add
> that there's a real technological overdetermination that hasn't yet
> been fully explored:  As a student of mine discovered last semester
> while writing a term paper about "death" on Facebook (in quotation
> marks because he was both looking at the ongoing existence of profiles
> of users who have passed away and at the status of profiles that users
> have "killed"), a deactivated profile is never really removed from the
> site.  In fact, if you attempt to deactivate your Facebook account,
> you get the following bits of info:
>
>> Note: Even after you deactivate, your friends can still invite you
>> to events, tag you in photos, or ask you to join groups. If you opt
>> out, you will NOT receive these email invitations and notifications
>> from your friends.
>> You can reactivate your account at any time by logging in with your
>> email and password.
>>
>
> Which is to say that your profile remains on the network even if you
> pull it -- shambling on in a zombie-like state, perhaps, accruing but
> failing to respond to pokes and wall posts, but still there,
> nonetheless....
>
> --K.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------
> This message has been scanned by Postini anti-virus software.
>
> _______________________________________________
> The Air-L at listserv.aoir.org mailing list
> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org
> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at:
> http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
>
> Join the Association of Internet Researchers:
> http://www.aoir.org/
>