Poll/discussion: friends-of-friends

[elusiveat]

One of the shifts in internet culture that has occurred over the past ten to fifteen years is the degree to which people are willing to make their ideas public. This is notable on Dreamwidth, where a lot of accounts are locked down entirely, and it can be hard to make new connections (certainly harder than it used to be on Livejournal).

An idea I've heard kicked around as a possible middle ground for privacy would be to allow a privacy level that was visible to people trusted by the people you trust, or possibly separated by more degrees of separation, something you might call a "friends-of-friends" access level (though the "friends" nomenclature presents problems of its own). I believe this exact setting exists (or existed) on Facebook, but with the number and (number of different types) of people I had on *my* Facebook friends list, I regarded that option as essentially meaningless, so never used it.

The situation might be different on Dreamwidth or similar platforms.

What do you think?

Poll #21013 friends-of-friends

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Access List, participants: 28

If Dreamwidth offered a friends-of-friends access level, would you use it?

Yes
6 (21.4%)

No
9 (32.1%)

Maybe
13 (46.4%)

Mu
0 (0.0%)

Do you think a friends-of-friends access level would be a good idea?

Yes
13 (48.1%)

No
4 (14.8%)

Maybe
9 (33.3%)

Mu
1 (3.7%)

Discuss.

Comments

Re: Pseudonymity

[sorcyress]

I feel you on the "compromised" problem. I desperately want to lead a public life, because I'm not ashamed of myself¹ but I do recognize that eventually, my students -or coworkers, or bosses, or parents- (in increasing order of problematic) are going to find me.

My secret hope is that by spending a lot of time on the less well known parts of the internet, I will defy my students, who are used to the snapchats and the instagrams.

~Sor

1: I recognize that there are other reasons to want to be private about your identity, but for me it has always been a weaponized reaction to societally enforced shame --if I tell you "hell yeah, I'm a kickass queer poly kinkster" with a voice full of pride, you can't use those words to attack me in the same way. Similarly, ADHD, nonbinary, rape/abuse survivor, "weird", etc.

Re: Pseudonymity

[squirrelitude]

I go back and forth between https://xkcd.com/137/ on the one hand, and on the other hand thinking about how we don't have to make this choice in meatspace, and how the process of making that choice has chilling effects in the ways we communicate online.

I want to just be able to do stuff online without having to worry about it.

I think one of the core tricky bits is that for online stuff, keeping a permanent record is both 1) easy, 2) desired by many users, and 3) a natural consequence of asynchronous communication.

Re: Pseudonymity

[elusiveat]

https://xkcd.com/137/

I might vaguely remember having seen this one once long ago in the past, but in any case I had not been aware of it three minutes ago. Thank you for (re)making me aware of it.

<3