“Facebook Took My Privacy Away!”

There has been a lotta hullabaloo over Facebook changing—again—its layout—again—to something that becomes mildly upsetting for most of the Facebook-using populace for about a day and a half. And then we all get over it—again.

But whenever Facebook does one of these changes—now they've got us on some tricky new profile page—everyone reads Mark Zuckerberg the riot act over how he is stealing our precious privacy.

Yes, that same privacy that apparently doesn't prevent most college-age students from posting albums upon albums of themselves getting blacked out at bars.

It's very simple. In fact, so simple I'm going to call them (this is genius) Andrew Zaleski's Rules of Facebook Use. Ahem . . .

1.     Don't post anything on your Facebook you'd be ashamed of your parents seeing.

2.     Don't post anything on your Facebook that will prevent your securing employment after graduation.

3.     Don't post anything on your Facebook about your personal life that shouldn't be out on the Interwebs.

4.     Don't be stupid with your Facebook.

If all else fails, just stop using Facebook. Believe it or not, it isn't a requirement for life in the 21^st century. We can still survive without it! Remember telephones? You know, the way we should be talking to people nine out of every 10 long-distance conversations.

I would segue into a rant here about the beauty of voluntary association, but Oscar Wilde already did it for me. Read him, and then you'll be over Facebook taking your privacy away. (In all honesty, there's only one passage in Wilde's essay that I'm directly referencing. Either skim and look for it, or read the whole thing. I'll give you a door prize. Or you'll be converted to anarchy. One or the other.)