Luke Walker.org

A bit of departure from my normal blog posts… I spent a lot of today reading/listening to the news, or my version of ‘the news’ (not all of it new, not all of it newsy). I do this most days, but today, for some reason, a lot of what I read really struck me. Mostly in a bad way. Mostly because there’s been so much coverage of the war on terror lately, and that never makes me a very happy camper.

The terror stuff
Three links for you. First, Omar Khadr. The Current (CBC Radio One) played tapes of his CSIS interrogations at Guantanamo today (Video on The Star’s site. Not easy to watch/listen to). I won’t lie… Canada’s (and by that, I mean that government of Canada’s) treatment of the Omar Khadr file absolutely disgusts me. The fact that it’s often referred to as ‘a file’ disgusts me. He’s a human being. A very young one, who was even younger when he was arrested on allegations of being an enemy combatant. Our governments’ (both Liberal and Conservative, though the Liberals have now changed their stance) inability to do what’s right an bring this child soldier home to Canada is completely infuriating and embarrassing. I’m not particularly proud to be Canadian at the moment.

While PM Harper argues that he’s being treated humanely, Christopher Hitchens’ article “Believe Me, It’s Torture” (in the August issue of Vanity Fair, and recently interviewed on CBC Radio One’s As It Happens) makes me doubt that my definition of humane is quite the same as that of the government of the United States. A ‘favourite’ quote, after Mr. Hitchens first-hand experience with water-boarding: “You are being drowned, but very slowly and under controlled conditions. It’s not simulating the effects of drowning…”

And last but not least, the US’s terrorism watch list has grown to include a million names (courtesy BoingBoing). Not a million people, but a million names. Because if your name is on there, regardless of whether or not you’re the one to have done anything wrong, good luck with the whole hassle-free travel thing. Oh wait, no, it’s not about ACTUAL wrongdoing. The list is all about the suspected potential for wrongdoing, proof (or even public knowledge of the criteria that gets you on the list) be damned.

Back to the internet…
In good news… the Top Friends app on Facebook looks like it’s a goner! But not because people are mature enough to recognize that the kind of friendship gymnastics required by Top Friends are best left back in 2nd grade… it’s because Facebook has launched a simplified version of the app’s features (link: valleywag). That said, I understand the rationale–kind of. If I were spending as much time on Facebook as I used to (my use is largely limited to Scrabulous these days), I might spend a second or two caring about which friends show up on my profile when people view it, and that is something quite a bit different than labelling people my Top Friends… but that said, if I’ve added someone to my Facebook, why should I be worried about him/her showing up on my profile? Hmmm… could be grounds for a friends list cull.

Happy Earth Day, everyone!

A (good?) question from the Toronto Star: Is Earth Day still relevant?

Don’t look to the media for an answer. I did a quick scan of Canada’s major newspapers (the online front pages), English and French, and all I found was the Star article above (questioning Earth Day Canada’s corporate sponsorship) and this cute human interest piece in La Presse (following a 9 year old who launched a “véritable petite révoltuion écologique dans son école primaire”). Both stories were buried beneath news of record gas prices, dropping interest rates, and Habs fans rioting. A Google News search wasn’t much more positive than my initial survey. But doesn’t it seem to be the case that more of us are more interested in the fate of the planet than ever?

You wouldn’t know it, if you only follow mainstream media. If you do care, and you live in Ontario, make an Earth Day Resolution (like the kind that you make for the new year, but focus on the planet and not your waistline. Or both. But definitely the planet.) and mail it in to info at ocic dot on dot ca, and check out the Ontario Council for International Cooperation’s news page to see what others are pledging. And if you don’t live in Ontario, or you do but you just want to spread your pledge a bit, check out 43things or TakingITGlobal’s Commit tool or fbook app (if you find bugs in either of the TIG tools, email broken at takingitglobal dot org).

Oh, and check out this video. It’s not strictly about earth day, but it’s cute:

That link from Alec Couros’ excellent blog. Oh, and… Vote green next time you get a chance.

Yesterday, I was reading Tom Hodginkinson’s ‘With Friends Like These…’ (published in The Guardian), and while I’m usually pretty pro-Facebook bashing, I don’t agree with his points. He outlines six main reasons that Facebook is evil (my word), and well… they’re just a bit off. (And yes, Yaz, I did start drafting this before you posted)

1. “We will advertise at you”
Let’s be honest. Users are NOT Facebook’s client. We’re its data. We’re one of its selling points. If Facebook didn’t take advantage of the information we willingly and knowingly give it to make money, there would be no Facebook. This is, in and of itself, is not evil: everyone does it, everyone expects it. If you honestly don’t expect that your information is being collected and used by someone, you must have been born before the first census and then frozen in time.

2. “You can’t delete anything”
Good for Facebook. What if someone posted something libellous about me and then took it down? If Facebook deleted it right away, what would I do if I needed to take action? And while “reasonable” is vague, it’s also generally less than 18 months. They’re also fairly clear in their TOS (which, yes, I did read) about what they’ll do with information you’ve deleted, and frankly, it’s not a whole heck of a lot.

3. “Anyone can glance at your intimate confessions”
IF YOU DON’T WANT SOMETHING SEEN, DON’T PUT IT ON THE INTERNET. This has nothing to do with Facebook. As evil as they may be, I really believe they’re doing everything they can to restrict my information the way I want it to be restricted. Facebook definitely gives me a lot more options in this sense than any other site I can think of.

4. “Our marketing profile of you will be unbeatable”
Good for Facebook. Frankly, I am more than happy to have the most personalised user experience possible. I’m also happy that Facebook is able to keep it’s marketers happy by having good targeting. I’ve actually been in situations on Facebook where I’ve been disappointed because an ad was actually OF INTEREST to me, but I’d already clicked on to the next page before I realised what I’d seen (because I’m so used to tuning out useless ads), and couldn’t get back to click on the ad.

5. “Opting out doesn’t mean opting out”
I’m sorry, but if someone tries to steal my identity, i WANT Facebook to notify me. Saying “I don’t want any e-mail” doesn’t mean “I don’t want ANY e-mail.”

6. “The CIA may look at the stuff when they feel like it”
This isn’t Facebook being evil. This is the US government being illegal. If you don’t want them to see your info, don’t let your info reside on servers in the United States.

So we’ve established that these are pretty bad bases for deciding that Facebook is evil. What are good reasons, you ask?

1. “Facebook is ours, not yours.” See my previous blog post on this topic, Facebook: We’re Not Myspace.The crux: Facebook is pretty good at pissing off users by making decision that focus more on the their needs or those of their advertisers than keeping their databank, i mean ‘user base’ happy.

2. “If we let you think you have sway, we can convince you that you do.” See: Facebook Makes Us All Look Like Suckers and learn how Robert Scoble’s struggle gives us the illusion of control.

3. “Your life has to fit within our boundaries.”
Here’s my biggest beef with Facebook. I know I can limit profiles, but the reality is that i have different groups of people who I want to have access to my profile, but for entirely different reasons. I want my family to see one version, my friends to see another, and my co-workers/colleagues to see something completely different. But instead, I have to deal with daily context f*cks, just so that I can be one of the cool kids on fbook.

4. “It’s our data, but yours too, only not really.”
I haven’t yet tried to quit Facebook. Thought about it, but haven’t yet taken any steps. Why? Because you have to delete each artefact, one at a time, until Facebook has nothing left. I own my data, but I can’t just tell Facebook that I want it all back, I can’t take it with me to any other site, and I can’t specify rights in regards to my content for anyone but Facebook.

Emily sent me an article from the New York Times this morning, about the ways non-profits are funded and evaluated (worth a read). This quote really hit it on the nose, for me:

“The reason the nonprofit sector exists at all is because it can fund and invest in social issues that the for-profit market can’t touch because they can’t be measured,” said Paul Shoemaker, a former Microsoft employee and entrepreneur who is now executive director of the Seattle affiliate of Social Venture Partners International, a philanthropic network. “The nonprofit ‘market’ is not designed to be efficient in that way. Yet we’re applying the same efficiency metrics to both sectors.”

In the couple of years I’ve been working for a non-profit/charitable organization, one of the biggest frustrations has been the need to ‘invent’ short-term projects that sit on top of (and distract from) the core of what it is we’re trying to do, or having to re-frame the way we talk about our good work to match the needs of a funder, rather than focusing on how we can best serve the people we’re trying to reach. It’s nice to see things trending back toward the long-term view.