NPR: Mr. Facebook, Tear Down This Wall!

Mr. Facebook, Tear Down This Wall!

Scott Gilbertson over at Wired is demanding that social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace open up their little worlds. If you have ever used them, you know that these sites are like segregated neighborhoods. Facebook people can only link to Facebook friends. MySpace people have their own 'hood. And the more photos and music and contacts and friends you add to your page, the more tied you are to your particular site. He writes:

Want to show somebody a video or a picture you posted to your profile? Unless they also have an account, they can't see it. Your pictures, videos and everything else is stranded in a walled garden, cut off from the rest of the web.

So Gilbertson is asking the Web community to build its own open social networking system. It's technically possible, but he may not find people flocking to his cause. Segregation exists online for the same reason it does in the real world. People want the comfort of hanging around with people just like them.

Danah Boyd of the University of California-Berkeley recently wrote about how the closed ecosystems of MySpace and Facebook are evolving in different directions.

The goodie two shoes, jocks, athletes, or other "good" kids are now going to Facebook. These kids tend to come from families who emphasize education and going to college. ... MySpace is still home for Latino/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens, "burnouts," "alternative kids," "art fags," punks, emos, goths, gangstas, queer kids, and other kids who didn't play into the dominant high school popularity paradigm.

Even if you take down the technological barriers to sharing between the sites, would the users want that? You can make all the kids go to the prom together, but you can't make them dance.

- Robert Smith

4:55 PM ET | 08- 6-2007 | permalink

Comments (Send a comment)

Speaking as the parent of a 24 year old who has both a Facebook and a MySpace site, I think there are good reasons why girls and women need to feel they can easily limit the people who see their site. She has shown me things posted on both her sites,and on some of her friends' sites. To me, her site is a high tech way to get back in touch and stay in touch with friends from grade school through college. I don't think it really works too well as a way to meet new people, anyway. At least her experience has been that when she responded a couple of times to someone she didn't know who 'friended' her, that didnt work out. This is particularly true of guys who try to contact girls, it seems. It is no easier online to sort out the guys who are really sincerely interested in you than in the rest of life.

Sent by Janet | 10:27 PM ET | 08-06-2007

While I think there's much to be said about making it easier for people to interconnect their social networks when they choose, that doesn't mean everyone will be clamoring to tear down these walls. And that's because they like the walls they've created for themselves. Younger relatives of mine that grew up on MySpace have said to me they've switched to Facebook because "they're not kids anymore." And colleagues will direct me to their linkedIn page rather than MySpace because it's where they maintain their professional relationships. (Facebook, though, is caught in the middle, as I find myself using it for professional contacts multiple times a day now.)

Let's face it; as a species we like to form clubs and cliques. It's often not for the best of reasons, but we still do it. And some online environments provide a certain atmosphere conducive to the type of interactions we're seeking. So while making it easier for us to interconnect our social networks makes sense from a knowledge management point of view, I doubt people will suddenly give up their favorite online hangout just for the sake of interconnecting with other networks. That's why online social networks are called social networks - people go where they want to socialize, personally or professionally.

Sent by andy carvin | 9:29 AM ET | 08-07-2007

One quick note - If you want to share your Facebook photos you do not need an account... They provide you a link to send to people outside the network.

Sent by Josh Angichiodo | 12:48 AM ET | 08-11-2007

It is true that the American experience has been to use teams, clubs, churches and, more recently, gated communities to give us a sense of belonging, but it could be argued that our "cliqueness" is also what makes us such a troublesome presence in the world: my money, my race, my country, my religion. While, I agree, that Facebook and MySpace have given us an amazing ability to connect with friends, old and new, it is worth asking ourselves how we can expand our virtual and actual social networks to include others not so much like us. America, it's time to go global!

Sent by Anne McCrady | 1:10 PM ET | 08-12-2007

I wonder if Danah Boyd has ever actually used Myspace or Facebook. I've been on both for just about as long as they've been around, and while she really hopes to make some sociological generalizations about the sites they just don't hold up.

I know more queer people of facebook then I do on myspace, and I know tons of jocks and athletes on myspace. I think that facebook caters to artistic kids and techie types just as much or more than myspace, it's clean looking, simple and has an open interface which means you can tweak it and add just about any kind of functionality you'd like.

Really the major difference is that myspace was around first, and has millions and millions of people on it. Millions of people are really hard to generalize, but perhaps she wants to make it out to be the "bad boys" of the internet for some undisclosed reason. To me the thing that makes myspace so trashy is their advertisements plain and simple. Another reason why there are a lot of people (who would "fit better on facebook according to Danah Boyd) who haven't left myspace is that many people just don't want to have more than one social network account.

But let's face it, it's all about preference at this point. They are all free, do similar things while offering their own unique functions etc.

Sent by wess daniels | 9:46 PM ET | 08-12-2007

The online social networking sites help quell social anxieties that an enormous amount of americans and indeed, the world have when meeting people face to face.

Sent by Branden Rush | 3:36 PM ET | 10-04-2007

I am 39 and am pretty hip I have to say, but I am so not interested in these networks AT ALL. I think it is a crazy waste of time and is just a distraction from real interactions with real people. Maybe it is for people who are really looking for their soul mate? and I can't relate because I already have my soul mate? I just don't get it and have no interest in getting it. I say get a liREAL life and REAL friends!!!!

Sent by Kathleen Bailey | 3:38 PM ET | 10-04-2007

I am a female college student who has both a myspace and a facebook. Facebook started out as a place for just college students to connect, so it isn't just the "preppy jocks" and I have seen a variety of people on there. I have a friend who sells her artwork on facebook, so yes art people are on there too. Myspace is more juvenile than facebook and a lot of my friend don't want myspace because they feel it is for younger kids. Myspace and facebook "networking" is also an easy way for people who went to school (whether high, middle, or elementary school) to meet back up or keep in touch. Myspace seems to be more of a high school fad, while facebook is for older peoples (although that is changing). I feel facebook is safe because only the people that I choose to be my friends can look at my information, unlike myspace. Facebook also is a way of finding someone out. It isn't uncommon for someone to "facebook" someone just to see what they look like or something about them. I admit that these network sites probably can get out of hand and like an addiction to some people, but that is not everyone. Maybe they should have looked at the college scene and how young adults use it instead of making accusations about something they don't know much about.

Sent by Kaitlin | 2:36 AM ET | 10-08-2007

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