hal tweets ·11:28 AM
Ghostbuster zines from the Canzine Hollywood Piracy Zine Challenge are now online! http://t.co/RoAMEQTU
2009,
9:24 GMT
This Post Brought to You By Gaydar
Posted by: Hal
Over and over again we are told that if we educate ourselves about the privacy policies of social network sites and implement their privacy options, we won’t have information we want to share with only a few hundred people ending up in the hands of thousands or millions of people we don’t know.
But a recent study done out of MIT that is not yet published, though reported on by the Boston Globe, tells us something different. The study, performed in 2007, basically concluded that you can tell if someone is gay by analyzing his friends on Facebook. Basically it’s the “birds of a feather flock together” principle. The study consisted of analyzing how many self identified gay guys other gay men have as Facebook friends. Once the magic number had been determined, a computer program then went through around 1000 guys in the MIT network who did not identity their sexuality, and predicted whether or not they were gay. The researchers used personal knowledge of some of the people in the study to confirm the accuracy of the computer program’s results.
Here are some interesting quotes from the article: “Discussions of privacy often focus on how to best keep things secret, whether it is making sure online financial transactions are secure from intruders, or telling people to think twice before opening their lives too widely on blogs or online profiles. But this work shows that people may reveal information about themselves in another way, and without knowing they are making it public. Who we are can be revealed by, and even defined by, who our friends are…If our friends reveal who we are, that challenges a conception of privacy built on the notion that there are things we tell, and things we don’t.”
“Computer scientists are identifying the ways in which anyone from a potential employer to an advertiser might be able to make informed guesses about a person. But there are limits to online privacy, and ultimately, say some experts, people will simply have to weigh the costs and benefits of living online.”
Bottom line: there is no privacy in peep, no matter how much control over your information you might think you have. I’m sure that a similar program could be developed to determine, based on your profile, if you were likely to vote, have a car, a kid, a dog, or even an affair.
2009,
17:11 GMT
Shoplifters Confess on Dr. Phil and Get Arrested
Posted by: Hal
How far will you go to peep yourself? To tell a good story? To get attention?
Here’s breaking news in Peepville: A couple, the Eatons of San Diego, ages 34 and 26, approach Dr. Phil to tell their story. Their story – they are addicted to shop-lifting. They use their toddlers as decoys. They’ve made hundreds of thousands of dollars stealing stuff and re-selling it on Ebay.
According to them, they came to Dr. Phil for help. Instead, the show, which aired last November and included a home video they made showing one of their interstate shopping sprees, has now gotten them arrested.
What were they thinking?
In the age of Peep, even criminals seek the limelight. Maybe the Eatons even considered what they were doing a way to legitimize their actions. We didn’t do it for the cash, we did it to get noticed. They could profit from their past by peeping it. Seeking help in a non-public setting would be pointless if the whole reason you were doing it in the first place was to get noticed: What’s the point of doing it if no one no one’s about it?
It’s happened plenty of times before.
We know, of course, what the show’s producers were thinking when the couple contacted them: This is great stuff! How soon can we get them on tv? I hope they don’t change their minds! These people are crazy!
The show makes halfhearted attempts to shield their identities by only referring to the couple’s last name and not saying where they live. That’s really bizarre, since their faces are not blurred and they provide all kinds of other information about their identities.
Anyway, here’s an interesting tidbit to chew on in, as reported by the LA Times: “When the fraud task force cranked up its investigation in recent months, an attorney representing the couple complained a Dr. Phil producer had tricked the couple by promising psychological help and, if they were indicted, bail money and a legal defense fund – assertions the show denies.”
The show doesn’t care what happens to these people. The people themselves don’t seem to care what happens to them. It’s all about the peep. Now go watch the video.
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2009,
14:06 GMT
GPS Dating Article in the Globe and Mail
Posted by: Hal
Here’s a good article introducing the latest peep trend: gps dating services that alert you when a potential match is physically proximate. There are a whole bunch off new players on this scene, including Skout, Are You Interested?, BluePont, and for gay guys, Grindr.
A screen shot from Bluepont gives you a quick snapshot of how this works.
“Give Chance a Hand!” “This is Magic.” Yeah. Right.
A few interesting points about these services: though the article quotes me pointing to some of the potential fallouts, it doesn’t come out and state the biggest and most obvious one of all: most of these services are “free” and are looking monetize by either up-selling premiere services once you are hooked, or by integrating some form of advertising into the service. (“Hey your potential hook-up is just down the block! And so is Starbucks!”) As is all too often the case with peep-related products, something that seems free comes with a cost.
The article also mentions that I’ve “experimented” with Latitude, the Google GPS service that allows you to share your location with people, and vice-versa. I got a Latitude demonstration when we were at Google Headquarters, and I’m very intrigued to test out the service and see how allowing people to know my location will change everyday life. Outside of the many drawbacks that come from any service that wants you to share your location so they can make money, there’s something really interesting about the idea of people being able to drop in on you randomly, something community minded and fun about the concept. Coming up soon on the peepdiaries site we’ll be going live with Lattitude for a while. There will be a Google Map on the site that lets people track my whereabouts and even randomly drop in on me. That’ll probably happen in a few weeks. Hey director Sally, when are we doing that?
Graphic for the the Globe and Mail story on GPS Dating Radar Love.
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2009,
15:30 GMT
LA Times Piece on NYC Voyeurism
Posted by: Hal
Fun, interesting piece on the rise of voyeurism in New York fueled by the opening of the elevated High Line trail and a hotel along that trail with floor-to-ceiling windows.
The piece cites my book and quotes me, and sets up a nice dynamic with two different couples who have come from out of town to watch the action from the High Line vantage point.
Are the people in the hotel performers or free spirits? A little of both…
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2009,
12:59 GMT
Hockey: Washington Capitals fake Twitter Accounts and Hal Gets Into Shape
Posted by: Hal
So another hockey season is creeping up. Hockey is my sport. I’m not every good, admittedly, but that doesn’t stop me from lacing up the skates every chance I get. My beer league team’s first game is Sunday night. Unfortunately for me, a summer of travel and then a long vacation featuring a lot of haggis and scotch has left me in terrible shape. Ah well, all I can do is hit the ice and try to work it off.
I’m also a bit of a fanatic when it comes to following my favourite team The Washington Capitals. (I picked up the Caps bug when I lived in suburban DC as a kid.)
So here’s an article that brings peep culture and the Capitals together at last! It’s a piece in the Washington Post about fake twitter accounts aimed at Caps players. What’s particularly funny about the whole thing, or particularly sad, depending on your perspective, is that the fake accounts feature players the casual hockey fan would be hard-pressed to identify, guys like Jeff Schultz and Brooks Laich. You’d expect fake Ovechkin accounts, but Caps prospect Karl Alzner? Even I wouldn’t sign up to follow that. For the record, Ovechkin has his own Twitter account with some 20,000 followers, though as of January 09 he hasn’t posted, saying he’s “taking a break from all this.” Not too worry, though, there are plenty of fake Russian super-star hockey players ready to step into the mix: A quick search reveals, in total, 8 “Ovechkin” accounts, ranging from 5 to 5000 followers. A few of them are hard to distinguish from the real thing.
There is a serious element to all of this: while everybody enjoys celebrity impersonation on Twitter done as obvious parody, the fact is that it’s getting harder and harder to separate the real from the fake. Is peep culture folding back into itself? Have we reached the point where real life is getting boring again? I don’t think so: we will always privilege so-called “reality” over “fictionalized” content. Sticking with DC, on the all news radio last night I heard, for instance, that Obama called Kanye West a “jackass” for his embarrassing outburst at the MTV awards. This is news not because it matters, but because it’s real. (The comments were made off the record before an interview…surely by now the President should know that nothing’s off the record anymore.)
Well, let’s leave the last word to Washington Capital’s prospect Karl Alzner, who says in the Post article: “The weird thing is people talk about my girlfriend, my dog, weird stuff. They have too much time on their hands. It’s not right.”
The real Ovechkin Twitter page above.
A fake Ovechkin Twitter page below.
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The Bloggist
Hey, I’m Hal Niedzviecki. I’m a writer/thinker who lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada with my wife and daughter. Up till now I’ve always considered myself a private person. But at the same time I’m fascinated by people who effortlessly open themselves up to the whole world. So I’ve… more...
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