Michael Krasny took on the Facebook IPO today on Forum (a morning talk show on NPR's Bay Area affiliate), and not surprisingly, the call-in audience had A LOT to say about how Facebook has affected and ruined their lives.
A mother of four called in, saying that she and three of her children use Facebook, but she now finds the whole thing "deceptive and intrusive" and "dirty." Regarding their strategy when it comes to using data and implementing privacy controls, she says "they continue to default to expose more and more of your information until you figure it out."
Another tech-saturated woman from the Peninsula calls in to say, "I don't get it it's just one more thing I have to check... I don't understand how it's become a daily part of my life and the lives of everyone around me... What's happened to us??!?"
Some of the panelists and callers discussed the relationships people have on Facebook as being fairly flimsy and fake, but at least one person called in to say "you can connect amazingly with someone through posts and comments" and says these connections are "very real."
But when such a successful company goes public, there's bound to be backlash. There was plenty of national TV news coverage in the last day or two hating on Facebook, at least by privacy advocates, academics, and curmudgeons who want to judge you for having 800 "friends." The general gist, including from callers on Forum is that peoples' "virtual relationships" and fake friends on Facebook are starting to supplant real relationships. Of course, a Facebook "backlash" got some ink back in 2007 when social ads were first introduced. Clearly these backlashes and groups of paranoiacs are dwarfed by the billions on the site who don't give a damn about sharing their photos and personal information.
Listen to the whole show below: